Server and email address changes

Good morning Folks,
If any of you have tried to email me lately and it hasn't gone through it's because I'm changing servers. The one I've been using for the past two years raised it's price quite a bit so a change was necessary. I will be contacting as many of you as I can personally from my address book.
Anyone can contact me with the email address in my profile here at blogger.

This is a quick post just so anyone who tries to contact me and can't,
won't start worrying.

I've got pictures and more to share later. I will try to post before work tomorrow.
I'm working a 5 day work week this week. :-)

Hope you all have a great week whatever you are doing, wherever you are.

FlowerLady

Forty-two years ago today…

I flew to Spain to join DH. He was in the U.S. Navy and this was his duty station for the next 3 years and two months.  He arrived in Spain near Christmas the month before, and started looking for an apt. for us to live in off base. 

He ended up finding one on the beach, for $75 a month.  We were on the 5th floor of an 8 story building.  Our apt. faced east so that we always saw sunrises over what we called hump-back mountain.  From our apt. we could also see the gold dome of the cathedral in Cadiz across the bay.  We could see ships coming and going from the port and little fishing boats as well.

My family took me to the airport in Miami, and my flight was late afternoon. This was my FIRST airplane flight, so I was a bit scared.  I landed in Madrid after a long flight, and had to wait for a connecting flight to Sevilla, where DH would pick me up.  I could not speak Spanish, couldn’t find any information booths open early in Madrid so didn’t know where or when my next flight was. I had about a 3 hour wait and just wandered near the information booths.  After some time and much worry and prayer, an American gentleman came up and asked me if I needed help and I told him my situation.  He showed me the flight board and told me which flight and when my plane would be leaving.  He asked if I’d had anything to eat and I said no, so he bought me an orange juice and a pastry.  I thanked him. He had said he was flying to Rota too, but not on my flight. He saw me to the gate of my flight and I got on board.

When I got to Sevilla, DH wasn’t there to greet me.  He had gotten lost.  He had stayed the night before in Sevilla, and had left early enough to get to the airport, but being a newbie in a foreign country, got lost. He asked directions and headed to the airport which was on the outskirts of the city. I probably had to wait 20-30 minutes.  What joy when I finally saw him. I told him about the gentleman in Madrid, and we waited for the next plane from Madrid to thank him, but the man wasn’t on it.  We left and headed off to our new home as newlyweds in Rota, which was several hours away. We said the man must have been my ‘guardian’ angel, and I still feel that way to this day.

We were blessed to have gotten the duty station in Rota during the Vietnam war. We were blessed to have started our life out there. The influence and the memories of that time are still with us.

We loved living in Spain and traveling around the country.

I’ve no pictures to share as they are all on slides right now.

Our adventure is still going on.

FlowerLady

***

Be glad of life

because it gives you the chance

to love and to work and to play

and to look up at the stars. 

Henry Van Dyke

My first Etsy sale, new plants, Tast

Hello Folks,

Here it is Tuesday afternoon for us.  We woke up to a gentle rain this morning and it must have rained for quite awhile from the evidence of puddles. We needed it and I hope we get some more.

I’ll be working at my job the rest of the week so am trying to get caught up with blogging for the week.

Yesterday my first Etsy sale happened and I was thrilled to say the least. It was the ecru colored needle case.  Thank you Jane.

Today I worked a bit on my spreadsheet for inventory. Yikes, that is a learning curve for me.  I’m glad DH is into that sort of thing and can help me out.  He makes up formulas too and that’s great.

We went to H.D. this morning because DH had to return something and he wanted to check on some electrical stuff.  I went into the garden dept. and ended up buying two pentas, one a reddish and the other a lavender, and a flax lily.  I repotted them, and was able to split off a flax lily tuber and potted it up.  Later I’ll divide up the plant some more.

Here are the tiny flowers of the flax lily.  Really sweet.

Yesterday I planted some native Blue Flag iris seeds into a flower box and look forward to seeing them sprout.  Susan thank you for the seeds.

I was late on last week’s tast stitch and today the new one came out, the Cretan stitch.  Last week’s was the Feather stitch. and I did it yesterday.  I used a variegated green thread and the little plants I was making reminded me of the asparagus ferns we have growing in the main garden, so I added the red berries that they get.

Here’s how I am storing them.  In a photo album I got for free when DH found boxes of craft items last year. There are three sleeves to each side of a page, and I’ve plenty to use for the 52 weeks of TAST.

I’m moving along on the embroidered heart.  Still have a bit more to do.

DH has cleaned up the tiny fridge from the caravan, painted the outer sides of it even though it won’t be seen, to retard the rust that had started.  He used some oak looking formica that we had in our stash to make a new cover for the front.

He’ll be cleaning away rust from the little two burner stove that was original too and painting it with a grill/stove paint which only comes in black. He used steel wool to get some of the rust off to see how bad it was, that’s when we decided to paint it.  DH had a quart of the paint in his workshop so we won’t have to buy any.

We are going to use some granite looking formica that we had in our stash for the counter top .

I think that about does it for now.

Hope you all have a great week.

Chat with you later ~ FlowerLady

******

We can easily manage if we will only take,

each day,

the burden appointed to it. 

But the load will be too heavy for us

if we carry yesterday's burden over again today,

and then add the burden of the morrow

before we are required to bear it. 

John Newton

 

Crocheted needle cases and lavender filled hearts

Just a quick note to say that my crocheted needle cases are now listed in my Etsy shop.

Also, since Valentine’s day is coming, you might want to check out the embroidered and beaded lavender filled heart sachets to send to someone special. 

Or just to let someone know they are thought of, or if someone is feeling blue, the scent of lavender is calming, healing, a wonderful scent for mind and body.

FlowerLady’s Creations is the name of my Etsy shop. 

I will be listing more items when I can.

Sincerely ~ FlowerLady Lorraine

What is this vine?

I have been babying this vine thinking it was something else. It has little tiny white flowers that smell sweet and remind me of honeysuckle.

I live in s.e. FL zone 10.

Sorry the flower came out blurry, I know doubt jiggled it while taking the photo.

Thanks for your help in identifying this.

FlowerLady

Where has a week gone? Blooms ~ lots of pictures

Good morning Folks,

Well, it’s Monday morning here in s.e. FL.  I hope you all had a great weekend. I planted some seeds yesterday, repotted a rose and moved it into the main garden. Last week I worked in the secret garden and in the main gardens, and it felt great working in them. I even got a scrape and bruise down my right shin bone, front of leg when a piece of decorative cement fell over and scraped down the leg. OUCH!  At least I had my long jeans on, but it sure hurt like crazy. It’s much better today. I’m going to try to stress less this year, go with the flow, and not be too envious of all the beautiful gardens I see on the internet. I’ve more seeds to plant, and cuttings to take, that I hope will root.

Oh yea, yesterday while out in the main garden taking pictures, I looked at a vine I’ve been watching as I noticed it had buds on it.  I thought it was going to have purple morning glory type blooms, but instead these are tiny little that smell like honeysuckle, at least that was my interpretation of the scent.  What a pleasant surprise as I love sweet scents in the garden.  I’ll show some pictures in the next post in hopes that someone in garden land will be able to identify it.

These pictures were taken over the last 3-4 days.

Four o’clocks.

Dainty Bess

Louis Philippe

Love ~ The first two pics were without the sun hitting the bloom. I then walked away, and a little bit later turned around and the sunlight hitting the bloom made me take another couple of pics.

Plumbago

Blue Sage

Spiderwort

Phyllis bide from bud to open bloom.

Kathleen

La Marne

Louis Philippe

Mm. Laurette Messimy

It’s time to fix us some breakfast.

Hope you all have a great week.

FlowerLady

A new stitch for a new piece

I have been so inspired by all the stitchers work that I am seeing at Stitchin’ Fingers and with the TAST 2012 project, that I dream about beads, wake up in the wee hours thinking about embroidering, beads, crocheting, tatting, etc.

I visited Ina’s website because she has some great tutorials for using different stitches.  Her peacock really inspired me and I want to try that too, although not on this piece. 

Most of you know I love roses, and when I saw what she did with a buttonhole knot stitch to create roses I had to give them a try.  I made a practice one, then decided to add one to the piece I just started this morning. I’ve got to try the rose buds too and add them to this piece.

I wanted to embroider another heart so here is the start of this next project. I used the blanket stitch to tack it down to the background fabric. The drawn lines are there because I’m going to make this another sort of ‘crazy quilt’ design.  The heart size is about 3 1/4” by 4”.

Here is a close-up of the rose and leaves. When I finished I was pleased and felt happy. Learning something new and having it come out half way decent is wonderful.

The size of the rose with leaves is 1 1/2” x 3/4”.

That’s it for now. Time to think about fixing supper.  Already have the beef in the crockpot that smells wonderful. I’ll fix mashed potatoes and some fresh carrots cooked somehow. The bread machine made a loaf of oatmeal bread this morning so we’ll have a slice of that too.

Happy Creating ~ FlowerLady

A yellow ribbon for Alfred

This may be old fashioned, or out of date, but I do it as a reminder of the one I know who is overseas and to pray for them and their family waiting at home. The first time I did this tribute was for my niece’s husband who went to Afghanistan, he was there at least twice and maybe three times.  Hard on all of them each time.  I did it again when a cousin’s son was over there. Now I am doing it again, this time for Tracy’s Alfred, who is in Kuwait and will be gone almost a year. He just got there last month.

Tracy and Alfred have three children, two still living at home and she is holding down the fort while he is gone.  My love and prayers go our for them at this time.

You can visit Tracy here at The Enchanted Cottage. She is creating a haven for her family on a budget and encourages others in their pursuit of the simpler life, getting out of debt, etc.

It is not easy for our military men and women any time they are away from family and home life.  The all need our encouragement, support and prayers.

FlowerLady

Brrr and flea goodies

Good evening Folks,

We had a ‘cold’ for us day, gray skies, wind and it was a good indoor day.  Although, we did go to an indoor flea market within walking distance. It was a nice brisk walk. They don’t have this very often and the last time we went I got a nice pair of clip on earrings. (My ears aren’t pierced and I love the old clip or screw on earrings with nice stones/beads or anything artsy that strikes my fancy.) The doors opened at 8 and we got there about 15 minutes early and with the wind blowing it was COLD.  We were up pretty close to the door and building so it was better than being further out. I wanted to find beads, or lace or what-have-you to create with. I had some $ from the sale of my first needle case, and spent it on beads, and 3 nice little pillows from Germany that I plan to embellish.

The beaded necklace I took apart.  Three groups of strands of nice creamy seed beads, a nice group of strands of black beads, and a nice strand of pearl beads.

I was thrilled to get more bugle beads in the bead box.  Sorted the beads according to colors and am itching to create.

I also bought a hand made pair of earrings that are made out of paper.  The copper and green colors caught my eye, and they were only 50 cents.

As I was going table to table I spied the next item with a piece of masking tape and the word FREE on it. I love birds and ducks and have them as figurines and paintings.  This one had been broken and glued back together, (not very good but still, they tried.)  The coloring really struck me. It looks like an older piece to me. It now resides in my scullery window display.

DH bought a book by Lee Childs, then we left.

Not long after we got home our neighbor called up and wanted to know if DH wanted to go to the indoor flea.  DH told him we had already been but he’d go there with him, so off he went. 

He came home with a little something for me.  When we had been there earlier, I had seen these earrings that a lady had a whole display of and said they were all Monet.  I was familiar with the name, but when she named her price, I passed.  When we got home I told DH about the earrings, no description or anything, just that I’d seen this display and that she’d said they were Monet.  When he came back later, he said he had something for me and he hoped it was right.  I couldn’t believe it when he pulled these out of his pocket.  They were the very earrings I had held in my hand.  Of course, he got a thank you and a big kiss and a smile from ear to ear from me.

******

Now, here are some birdie pics from the other day and one from this morning. These photos were taken from inside the scullery, through the window looking out at the bird bath.  I had to race out here to my little space for the camera, hoping the bird would still be there when I got back. He was, and I believe he is some kind of finch. He was taking his sweet time getting down to the water, making sure there was no danger near, before dipping into the pool.

I don’t know what kind of bird this next one is.  This was taken this morning, and before I could get another picture, some other bird flew into the area and scared this one off.

******

Here is the caravan floor with 4 coats of polyurethane. Now you have to remember, this space is only 6’ wide by about 8’ long.  To the right is where the counter will be with the stove, refrigerator and sink.  The gray piece that the pillow is sitting on is where the butane tank goes. There will be a bench at the back of the picture up to the gray box, and most likely a bench on the left side so not much of this floor will even show, but the plywood flooring is now nicely coated with about 7-8 layers.

******

Well, it’s about time to go get horizontal to read awhile before sleep.  I had off today, which was nice as I usually work Saturdays.  Yesterday I had a good day at work, made a nice sale and got a nice tip from the buyer. My boss was pleased and so was I. I’ve never had a customer give me a tip before.  I don’t go back to work again until Thursday. I get to putter around here. Yay!

Tonight it is supposed to get down to 45 and with the windchill factor, feel like it’s 38, so that is going to be cold for us. I brought some orchids in hopefully everything else will do fine. I do need to hand water some things tomorrow.

Hope you all have a great week coming up.

FlowerLady