It’s a new day

Good morning Friends ~ Thank you once again for all of your encouraging words, your prayers, emails, comments. God uses them all in strengthening me to continue on each day in this new journey and I am ever thankful. I also read uplifting books, articles and see movies that I just happen to come across that speak to my heart and soul.

From our widow’s group every month we get a calendar with each lady’s name listed on a day of the month, and we are to remember them in prayer on that day.  It’s a wonderful thing and I’m working on taking photos at the meetings so that we can put names and photos together. Today happens to be my ‘day’ for prayer, and it is nice to know the ladies are praying for me today.  Prayer works wonders.

Yesterday was ‘sr. citizens’ day at both Good Will and Salvation Army thrift stores, so I decided to take a little jaunt to both, I needed to get out to do something different.  I got rid of some books and a bag of stuff also, making my load lighter.

At GW I got two nice shirts, and two lounge/gowns by Cherokee for $10.47. All washed and hung out to dry yesterday in our beautiful weather, which dried quickly. GW discount 25%.

At SA, I bought 2 - 100 % cotton pillow cases,  material for needlework ideas, and a strand of freshwater pearls.  When I saw the strand as a necklace in the case my heart started beating faster, they just grabbed my eye. These are small ones, not perfectly shaped, that fact and their luster gave them away. I asked to see them and the price. $1.99, but with discount $1. There are 276 of these little gems. Spent $6.45, total. A wonderful velvet type material, a sheer fabric with stars, and a beautiful black patterned satin type material. SA discount 50%.

Isn’t this beautiful???

This heart was already a work in progress and set aside, after making the heart with peach roses the day before, I decided to work on this piece again. I added more French knot flowers, tiny purple beads and crocheted the beaded edging.  Actually I even crocheted another beaded edging, but then went back to the first one.  This morning I am crocheting a single crochet row with the purple thread.  I may add some of the fresh water pearls to this, I’ve not decided yet.

You can see the tiny beads used in the circles in this photo below.

Here’s the other edging I crocheted/beaded.

I didn’t like how it looked with the piece after all, so will save it for another piece.

Here’s the heart created the day before.  I love how it turned out. Again I crocheted another beaded edging, and after sewing it on, added Czech crystals to finish it off.

As I was creating the above pieces, I felt my husband and his love and support through the years and even now. I had on peaceful, lovely music, and hummed along at times, which is something he always enjoyed hearing. He took this photo of me below in 2010, in my little space where my computer is and where I create.

Here is the view out my window this morning.

Well, it’s time for some breakfast and to get started on the days’ doings.

Love and hugs to all of you ~ FlowerLady

After…

Good morning Folks ~ This is a new day, the morning after a big crying meltdown last evening.  It is a bright, sunshiny morning, birds are singing and I’ve a soothing you-tube video on my lap top. I came out to the caravan with my second/final cup of coffee for the morning, for a switch of scenery.  This is the last project Mark and I were working on together.  Unfinished so far, as I’ve a bunch of other stuff that I need to work on.  All in good time this will be finished.  It’s a sweet space.  A piece of junk, refurbished and turned into a little happy spot. Once finished, we were going to sleep out here while we worked on the bedroom in the cottage, laying flooring and doing walls, but alas.  We don’t know why things work out the way they do, but my belief is that God knows and He brought me to this place in my life to draw me closer to Him. Mark is with God in a much better place than here. May I be a light to others as to the goodness of God, in our darkest moments.

I cried so much and so hard last night my stomach ached and I just plain ol’ hurt. One of my worst bouts of grief yet. I was going to call Dotti, the founder of our widow’s group, but was just sobbing too much.  I prayed that maybe she would call me, well, she didn’t call me but she emailed me and that was better as I was a sobbing mess.  She emailed me a piece about ‘getting over it’.  Not something we can do or should do.  It was just what I needed. I ended up posting it in our Friends Needing Friends, widow’s blog and you can read the piece here if you wish to.

After a nice shower, and a cup of peppermint/green tea, and taking a St. John’s wort capsule and a Vit. C, and acidophilus I crawled into bed with a book I am re-reading, 'The Widow Directed to the Widow's God', by John Angell James. By lights out, my heart and mind were much calmer and I had a good sleep.  I am thankful for that and this new day and my many blessings.

Here are some photos I took this morning.

Through the door window,

you can see a little garden area I made yesterday with container plants.

Looking east to the clothesline area.

Yesterday I did more weeding in front of this building, you can see it piled up on the driveway runner.  I also hung two iron pieces on the wall, an old wheel above the big wheel, and an old car tire rim next to it on the bottom.  The grass is like straw these days as we’ve not had any rain in weeks now.  I don’t water anything back there except for potted plants and garden beds.

This is looking southwest towards the workshop.

Little container garden.

Mark bought me the shell birdbath a few years ago for my birthday when we stopped at a yard sale.  He got it for $5.

Well, the sun is rising higher, I need to wash and hang out some laundry, eat breakfast and do more puttering.

Whatever you do today, count your blessings, look for the good and beauteous, and enjoy. Ask for strength and peace and healing when you need it.

Love and hugs ~ FlowerLady

What a difference cooler weather makes

 

Good morning Folks ~ It’s not quite 7 a.m., still dark out, and a wonderful 66 degrees.  I turned off the a.c. opened the kitchen door to screened porch and opened a couple of windows to let the fresh, cool air in. Aaaahhh!

Thank you all for your kind comments on my ‘rigged’ arbor.  I hope it will last me a good while.  The next day it was still nice out so I went out first thing in the morning and dug up from the back of main garden, garlic vine

and sandpaper vine,

photo below from anns tropics . com

and put them in two large plastic flower pots filled with organic potting soil that I get cheap from the veggie market. One pot is on either side of the arbor.  I checked them yesterday and neither looks to have wilted from the shock of being dug up.  I’ll have to check later when it gets light out. I’ve never had flowers on my sandpaper vine and hope to now that it’s in better soil. I think I got this as a cutting in a trade a few years back.I look forward to blooms from both of these, and hopefully in the next few months.

Here’s a photo showing both vines, which I tied to the chicken wire. Sandpaper vine on the left and the garlic vine on the right. I want to plant something or other in both pots to fill in the bare dirt, I just had an idea, so I’ll show it later.

After I did the above I weeded and trimmed in front of the back shed and the wonderful shell flowerpots we ‘curbside shopped’ a few years back, 2005 to be exact, and I wrote a post about them in 2009.  May Day Flower Pots

I kept on weeding and trimming as I moved west to the storage building, called the green shed, because that’s the color it used to be.  We both knew what we were talking about when we called it that. This is how it looked in May right after I did some mowing and weed-wacking.

Here’s how it looks now after weeding and moving some of the stacked iron. The tub is full of small stuff and very heavy to move, and the bucket on top of that is the same way. I’ve still a couple more things to move to the iron stack, and a small wheel to hang above the large wheel, and there are a couple of old farm implements that I need to find a place to display too.

I raked up the weeded debris from where my little ol’ Mazda died and sat after DH left this planet, then laid out a tarp to start stacking the iron.  I am going through all the iron, piece by piece, because there are some cool old garden tools, and other artistic bits that I am going to keep.  The rest will go to the scrap yard.

Here are some antique tidbits, which I am keeping.  I think they were for pipes, I’m not sure.  DH would be able to tell you, but I’m clueless. The one in the front had these two turn buttons in the shapes of ‘hearts’, well, they look like hearts to me, so I unscrewed them and brought them in.

Sweet, rusty hearts.

I look forward to puttering more outside this week,

because the cooler weather has sure made a difference

in how much I can accomplish. I feel more alive.

 

Well, that’s it for now.  I hope you all have a nice week.

FlowerLady

Latest at Plum Cottage

Well, it was a nice cloudy day, cool and breezy with some very light sprinkles.  We could use a good soaking but that doesn’t look to be in the forecast.  I did do some watering this morning as the main garden really needed a drink. Supposedly, we are having a cold front. Ha! Ha! It’s still in the 80’s and is predicted to get down to 72 tonight. Who are the weather people trying to kid? Cold  my patootie.

As to the handyman, he did not want to do the pipe repair, suggested a real plumber and I asked him about a couple of other things, one would cost $2000-3000. So if I have any ‘little’ jobs I can call on him. He was nice, just not the handyman for the job at hand.  It really made me realize just how priceless all of the work was that my dear husband Mark did around here.  It made me miss him all the more too.  We would just go to HD and get supplies and do the jobs ourselves.

I was kind of bummed out, but in a way relieved too.  I didn’t know how things were going to be taken care of but I prayed about it and just left it in God’s hands. I went to bed feeling peaceful.  I did wake up around 2:30 and started thinking about how to do things, just not stressed, thinking of ways of how I could do certain things, and finally after about an hour, I fell back to sleep. I woke up feeling rested and relaxed.  Around 8:15 my brother-in-law called. I had emailed him last evening,  telling him about the handyman and asked if he knew of a plumber in the area.  Well, he and possibly our nephew are going to do the job by going under the house, if they can, to put in new pvc pipe and connections.  Our nephew lives on the west coast of FL and Todd lives an hour north of here, so they’ve got to figure out a Saturday they can both come to tackle the job, in the next 2-3 weeks, as Todd and his wife will be going on vacation for a week, next week.

I hate asking for help, am so used to us doing things ourselves, but there is no ‘us’ anymore, there is just little ol’ me. I am working on something for Todd and his wife that I’ll show after I give it to them. It’s for Todd’s labor and Sue’s not having him on weekends when he comes here to do work.

Anyway, after we talked for awhile this morning, my heart felt even lighter than it had when I woke up so since it was the kind of day it was, I decided to work on a funky garden project using a couple of iron pieces we had found a couple of years ago.  Mark would get a kick out of this, because it is ‘rigged’ that’s for sure, but I think it’s sturdy enough for what I’m using it for. It’s tied and strapped and once plants cover it, it should be ok.  I used some green plastic coated chicken wire that we found for the top and sides and a couple of pieces of pvc pipe.

Ta da, my new arbor.

This was a fun project and took me awhile, but I did it by myself.  I’m not sure what plants I’ll use, I do have a rooted cutting of the purple flowering garlic vine, and I have a couple of rooted red flowering passion vines too. I’ve got the blue pea flowering vine also. I don’t want to go out and buy anything.  I’ll keep you posted.

Here are some flowers blooming here.  For the next 6 months or so is the great time to garden down here in s.e. FL.

This is a bromeliad flower.  As it progresses, more of the little purple flowers come out of each red section of the whole thing.  I’ll try to remember to take more photos.

This little rose is ‘Prosperity’.  A real die-hard here as it suffers/or not, from neglect.  It would do much better with more TLC, but lately I’ve been pretty ‘stretched’ in a lot of areas.  It is always a joy to see this rose bloom.  They are sweet little dears.

Thank you all for your comments in the last two posts about the grouping on the wall.  The paintings and pine needle basketry work were done my ‘Mama & Papa’ who were Mark’s paternal grandparents, not either of our parents. I think I mentioned that in the first post but not the second one.  Sorry for the confusion.

Since I’m only working at my job ‘one’ day this week, I have tomorrow to do some more puttering around here, and I am looking forward to it.

Have a great weekend whatever you do. I’ve been enjoying seeing wonderful fall images on some blogs and I thank you all for sharing those fantastic scenes and colors.

FlowerLady

Updated living room west wall :-)

 

Good morning Folks ~ It is Wednesday, a new day, may I rejoice and be glad in it. I’ve much to be thankful for.  I’ve had a down couple of days, cried at the gas station yesterday, but I’m feeling better today.

I think what has gotten me down this time, is I’m going to have to call a handyman to do some work around here that Mark and I used to handle.  That hurts in more ways than one, but it’s now a way of life. I’m pretty sure I’ve got a leak in the old water pipe under the house. Mark had repaired a pin hole a few years back and we were talking of redoing the water pipes to pvc and making it go around the east foundation of the house on the outside, not underneath. The crawl space under the house is very tight. So, that’s one of the things I am going to talk with the handyman about. He comes highly recommended from the church I’ve been going to and by a couple of the widow’s, so I’ll give him a call and see what he says. I’m paying for city water, so want to get the problem fixed before it gets worse.

This morning after my first cup of coffee and during the second, I rearranged the grouping on the west wall of the living room.  I added a couple more small paintings done by Mama, framed by Papa and they add whimsy. These baskets and paintings that were done by them were done right here in this little cottage. Pine needles gathered by Papa.

Below are close-up shots of it all.

Aren’t these cute?  The expressions on the faces are sweet.  Mama started painting late in life and her style is primitive, which is a style Mark and I both liked.

We found this piece at the flea market years ago.  The little pine cones in the center are from the Australian pine trees, that have been wrapped in red yarn.  I should move the little cones to the center of the basket, but am not sure how it is tied on the back to change it. So for now, it is as it is. I think it looks good with the collection done by Mama and Papa.

The mirror is really pretty and I like the beveled lines on the two side pieces.

A rose called ‘Love’.

I came across this song the other day and it really touches my heart.

God does indeed make beautiful things.

*****************

Beautiful Things

 

Love, hugs and God’s blessings

on each and every one of you.

FlowerLady