24-25 December blooms and a win

Good morning everyone ~ I hope you all had a peace and love filled Christmas.

Both Christmas Eve day and Christmas day found me outside enjoying beautiful weather working the east side areas of my cottage.  This is my main entry and it needed straightening up with potted plants, remove a wheelbarrow of potting soil, pots, move and rearrange potted plants, etc.  I have to work outside when the weather is nice, regardless of what day it is.  Summer’s heat and humidity will be here before long and there are projects I want to get done before then.  We are having heat and humidity ‘now’, but not like during the summer.

Last Saturday, a friend of mine gave me a wonderful book “Container Gardening”. 

I was at work and as I looked through it I was getting inspired. Then a business came around selling plants, and normally I won’t even look when they come around, but he said it’s free to take a peek.  Mostly indoor plants, but… there was a red Knock-out rose, which nabbed my heart.  I bought it.  Merry Christmas to me. Then I felt guilty for buying it, sheesh! Soon after, I had a sale, and then another, and the commission from both, more than paid for the rose. I know ‘Who’ worked that out.

Oh, yeh, in the trash container in front of the shop where I work, were these three baskets.  My friend asked me if I had seen the two baskets out there, and I said no.  I jumped out of my chair, not too proud to look in the can, and there were not just two but a third one also. I think one of the shop owners whose wife used to make floral arrangements with beautiful silk flowers, threw these out.  One had a bit of paint and another had stain as you can see.  Don’t know yet what I will do with them, but they are good to have in my stash.  Free is good!

This time of year is when our gardens do very well down here in s.e. FL. I took pictures both days and hope they will bring some color and cheer to you.

One of my projects for 2014, is pressure cleaning and painting my little cottage.  It is something we were going to do but did not get to accomplish. You can see the knock out rose sitting in a ‘faux bois’ chair, that friends Nanci and John gave us years ago.

I love this flower arrangement.

Now for my win in a drawing done by Jeri Landers of Hopalong Hollow Gazette.  If you have not visited her wonderful, happy blog yet, please do.  You won’t be disappointed, just click on the link above to take you there. She is a wonderful artist in several mediums.  Her attention to ‘detail’ is amazing.  I’ve been following her for a couple of years now and always enjoy visiting her blog.  She’s a wonderful story teller and has delightful you tube videos also. 

Anyway, she had a drawing for book number three in her series and three people were going to be lucky winners, and I just happened to be one of them.  I had already told her I wanted to buy one as this book about Mamsy has to do with needleworking. She told me to wait before sending a check just in case I was a winner, plus the books hadn’t come in yet and she didn’t want money sent until they arrived. Well, lo and behold, I was one of the three winners. Hip, hip hurray.  I won her first book in another drawing a couple of years ago, then last year when Mark left this planet for his heavenly home, she sent me her second book. They are all delightful.

This book arrived on Monday, and I saved it to open on  Christmas morning.  What an absolute delight!  It is my favorite of all three books. I had a smile on my face, joy in my heart, tears in my eyes, and inspiration was all over the place.  Thank you Jeri.

This is a book for all ages!

What she wrote to me really blessed my heart and inspired me to keep working with needles, threads, buttons, laces, ribbons and beads.

Here’s the trailer she made for this sweet book.

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As 2013 comes to a close and 2014 is about to begin,

reflect on your many blessings,

learn from mistakes made,

don’t forget to dream.

Be kind,

loving and forgiving others,

encourage others.

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My word for 2014 is ‘conqueror’,

to be victorious.

Not by my might,

but by God’s strength.

“I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.”

I don’t want to be afraid, or think I can’t do things just because I lost Mark. I know he’s cheering me on, and sometimes I hear his ‘atta girl’, when I accomplish something.

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Enjoy this last week of 2013 and may 2014 be a good year.

Love and hugs ~ FlowerLady