I am so thankful

 

Hi Folks ~ I am so thankful that first of all Hurricane Danny fizzled out, then Erika who was a tropical storm also fizzled out after hitting the mountains of Cuba.  She hardly gave my area any rain at all.  We had more rain the week before than from her who was predicted to dump 4-8 inches with flooding.

The first photo is looking east.

This is looking south.

Here I was dressed for rain as I headed over to feed and let out Bella and Max yesterday (Sunday) morning. This picture was taken between 6:30-7. Boy oh boy that rain outfit was horrible. I started sweating as soon as I put it on.  When I got to the jobsite, I pulled it off. Never needed it anyway, but I was prepared.

This is an alamanda, which I almost missed seeing, and it is past its prime. I got this as a cutting a couple of years ago, and this is the second bloom, as I saw that there was an empty sepal where a blossom had been.

Last week I bought some pin backs, as I wanted to try my hand at making a beaded heart pin. So, yesterday I got started, I used  a stiff beading foundation. Put a piece of lace on it, and proceeded to bead the flower and leaves first, then filled with with beads. Needless to say, this took hours. The size is 2 5/8 inches x 2 5/8 inches. My right hand is aching a bit after all of this work.

This morning I looked on you-tube to find a tutorial I had seen awhile back for a finished edging.  Found it and after making the backing and gluing the two pieces together, I did the edging.

I’ve been discouraged and somewhat depressed this past month, it’s been building up since losing my job in April. (On top of losing my dearest and best friend, the love of my life.) Losing my job after 17 years, was rough. Both of these losses have made me wonder just what the heck am I supposed to be doing at this time in my life. I’ve read some spiritually uplifting pieces this past week, plus seen some on the computer. They have helped me feel lighter and better and I am thankful to God for His tender love and care. He sees me through each and every day.

I love ‘creating’ and working on this pin and finishing it was wonderful therapy.

Fall is coming. My little part-time job comes to an end tonight. I am relieved Bella, Max and I made it through 36 days.  I know they are going to be so glad to see Dad tonight when he gets in around 9:30-10.

I look forward to puttering in my gardens and with projects.

I have much to be thankful for.

I thank you all for your prayers, good wishes, etc. for calm in my heart and spirit and safety with these two storms.

I hope you all have a great week.

Count your blessings, let your loved ones know you love them.

FlowerLady

***

O Infinite Father, I'm grateful to Thee

For the moon and the stars and deep rolling sea;     

For beauties of nature, where e'er they may be...

For the handclasp of friends, so firm and so true;

For sunrise and sunset and glistening dew;

The fleecy white clouds and the Heavens, so blue;

For these wonderful gifts, dear Lord, I thank you!

Gertrude T. Buckingham, "My Song of Thanksgiving"

Danny faded away, Erika took his place

 

Hi Folks ~ I am sitting here in my little space while it gently (right now) rains. A lot of rain is expected for the next week or so. I felt well enough and had the window of opportunity to mow at my ‘jobsite’ this morning, so that’s what I did.  I took tiny breaks and drank water and was glad when the job was done. I washed and dried doggie ‘bedding’ too.

Well, hurricane Danny fizzled and faded away. BUT now there is Erika who is a tropical storm right now and I pray she stays that way, or just fizzles out as Danny did.  She is headed right towards my area. Of course, being me, a gazillion worries start surfacing and I am doing my best to give them to God and continue on. This is the first storm since my dear husband left this planet, and since Wilma 10 years ago. Erika is nothing like Wilma. So far Erika is just a tropical storm.

Here’s the prediction right now. Winds predicted the closer the storm gets. I’ll keep you posted.

Thank you all for your prayers with this ‘bug’. I remembered a black elderberry syrup made by Sombucal in France that Sandra of Thistle Cove Farm blog had told me about when I was sick in the spring. I bought that Monday morning and dosed myself with the intensive care dosage, 2 tsps. 4 times a day, drank hot ginger tea sweetened with honey, and at night if I had a cough I took a bit of honey. I also took herbs and vitamins. Yesterday I felt better, today I feel more normal again.  I sure didn’t want to get sick like in the spring, that lasted for over 6 weeks. This morning I’m sure I sweated out a ton of toxins.  When I got home from mowing, I checked the weather and it was in the high 80’s but felt like it was 107.  YIKES!  I had a nice long nap this afternoon.

That’s it once again from tropical s.e. FL. I hope you all are enjoying your week so far. Thanks for your visits and comments.

FlowerLady

 

The trouble with weather forecasting is that it’s right too often for us to ignore it and wrong too often for us to rely on it.

Patrick Young

---

The best thing one can do when it’s raining is to let it rain.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

---

Whether the weather be fine,
Whether the weather be not,
Whether the weather be cold,
Whether the weather be hot,
We’ll weather the weather,
Whatever the weather,
Whether we like it or not
Author Unknown

This and that

 

Hi Folks ~ This will be relatively short as I’m not feeling good, sore throat and slightly nauseous. I only got about 4 hours sleep last night. Something is going around again and it’s nabbing me. Ugh!

My dear sister-in-law Sue and I had a great time together this past Wed. night. I had free tickets from the owners of the dogs I’m watching, while they are in Finland, to see, Cirque du Soleil: Varekai . We had suite seats which was GREAT. Little rooms with seating for maybe 20, a bathroom and like a bar area with warming trays for food. It was first come first serve for seats and we got two together right up by the glass partition.  Both of us had vertigo at first, which went away after awhile. Here’s a pic of the two of us before the show started, which by the way was fantastic. The costumes, acrobatics, music and the male/female comedian duo was all wonderful, beautiful, funny. No flash allowed and lights were out for the show, so it was dark in our little space. They had some lights on in the auditorium so you could see where you were going.

Sue about had a heart attack because she thought the flash was off on her camera and lo and behold it wasn’t as you can see in this picture below. Needless to say, we did not take any more pictures after these two. The show ‘police’ did not come and throw us out, we were so relieved. I put a line around the stage.

Sue and I really enjoyed our time together talking, laughing, with a few tears, on our ride to and from the show.  We grew closer. (She is the wife of my dear husband’s brother Todd, who has been a big help to me with projects since my husband went to his heavenly home. They live a little over an hour away from me.)

If any of you get the chance to see one of these shows, do so.

----

One more cactus bloom opened on my ‘jobsite’s’ cactus and I got a picture of it.  These are only open for a short time during the night. This one was already closing up around 7 a.m.

Later on back at home while sitting in my little space here, a flash of movement caught my eye, and there was the Oriole again. How thrilling. I grabbed the camera but was only able to get one picture, through the window.

It is hot & humid with a big chance of rain later. I washed and hung out some laundry and hopefully will get it back in before the rains come.  Have been watching ‘Danny’. He was a hurricane but now is just a tropical rainstorm. Phew!

That’s it for now. I feel dragged out.  I’ll be glad when my time is up, the 31st is my last day, for taking care of Bella and Max. 36 days is a long time being responsible for someone else’s beloved pets. I need to mow one more time, do some pet bedding laundry, vacuum and mop the floor. The dogs are sweet and loveable so I can’t complain about them. Good dogs and I tell them so.

Have a great week and be well, be happy and be thankful.

FlowerLady

May Day Flower pots ~ 2005

 

A few of you asked about the huge shell encrusted flower pots so I though I would share the story again.

This adventure begins on a Friday morning before I left for work, when DH came back from Home Depot and said “there are two flower pots I think you are going to want in a trash pile. But ... they are huge.” He said “Let's go look at them”, so off we went.

We had passed these pots for years and years. They were on either side of a driveway and evidently new owners didn't want them. These pots are about 40 years old.

When I saw them I wanted to cry because they were just too heavy for us to deal with. We came back home, and I got ready for work. DH went up the street and asked a road crew if they could help and he would pay them. He talked to three different people, and the boss said lets look at them and after looking at them, he said he'd be back at such and such a time. Well, he never showed and that was very disappointing. We thought maybe the guy would show up on Sat. but he didn't.

It happened to be trash pick up day too on Friday, so we had no idea if they'd be around after the trucks came along picking up. DH and I both said if these are meant to be ours then they would be, if not, then that's just the way it goes. We didn't really NEED these, but we did hate the thought of them going out to the land fill and just get broken and buried. He went by Sat. morning and saw that everything had been picked up but the pots. When I went by on the way home from work, I saw them there still with another pile of brush and trash growing also.

Saturday night as we were sipping a glass of pre-dinner wine, DH thought of using our a.c. jack. I went out to where it was to check what weight it would hold and it said 500 lbs. We got in the car and went to where these monster pots were and took measurements of the things so that DH could figure out how much concrete was in them and how much they would weigh. He figured 370 lbs. each So we got all excited about doing this project and since it was going to be Sunday morning when we'd be doing this we knew the traffic would be light and it would be quiet, so decided to get up early. Early wasn't the word for it. DH woke up around 4 and couldn't go back to sleep for thinking about how to do this thing so we got up. Got things loaded into the truck, had one cup of coffee and took off.

The morning happened to be the first day of May, May Day, the air was breezy, we could hear roosters crowing in the neighborhood and we hoped for a smooth move of these pots.

Of course, I made sure I grabbed the digital camera (floppy disk back then), and here are the pictures from our adventure.

First we/he had to cut the roots that had grown out the bottoms of these pots, and that took some energy and time. We hadn't eaten our 'Wheaties' either so were going along on that one cup of coffee and adrenaline. It looks like ancient jasmine in these pots. I don't need them as I've got them in several places around here.

Here's DH starting to saw away the roots. You can see that it was still dark out when we started on this project.

By now it is lighter and you can see how the a.c. jack was used.  There are two handles that you crank up or down and the heavy wire cable.

Next we backed up the van to the pot and then let the jack down, and tied the jack to the pot and took off for home. (We live a few blocks away, so didn’t have far to go.)

Here we are back at home and you can see how the jack was just barely off the road.

One happy curbside shopper.  

DH was right when he said I was going to want these pots.

Here the pots are close to where we wanted to stand each one.

Lots of shells on these, some were broken by whoever took them up from where they had been sitting on either side of the driveway. We just put the worst sides to the back.

DH figured out how to get the root bound plant out of the pot, once again using the a.c. jack.

That a.c. jack is a wonderful tool.  We’ve used it for hauling roofing materials up onto the roof, and projects like this May Day Flowerpots project.

Looking at these pictures and remembering the whole thing just makes me love my DH all the more. He was always figuring out how to make, build, recycle, etc. ever since he was a boy. 

Here is how we rolled them into place. Pipes and lumber.

The photos below are after October 2005 ~ After Hurricane Wilma passed over. Scariest storm we ever went through. Our house was safe and we thanked God for that. We did have a heavy limb fall onto the workshop roof and poked a hole in it, but again we were thankful it wasn’t any worse.

Ah ha, now that I look at these pictures, you can see the plum color on the  buildings. Which is what I am going for again.

You can see the top of the pine on the left top of shed, hanging over the neighbors back yard. DH and another neighbor cut the tree up with a chain saw.

Here I am in the neighbors yard before we started hauling branches out of that yard into our own.

Here is the ‘caravan’ before it was the caravan. We popped the top, I cleaned it up inside enough to cook in. We were without power for 13 days and having the propane gas stove was great. This was just some of the pine limbs from the tree that went into the shed.

In picture below the pine is still in the shed as you can see it just above the blue tarp.  By the way, during the eye of Wilma, DH was up on the roof putting that blue tarp on. While he was up there I felt a change in the atmosphere and told him to come on, the back side of the storm is coming, and we no sooner got back inside and the ferocious winds started in again. It was AWFUL! But, we survived, thanks be to God. Going through an eye of a storm is amazing, you wouldn’t even think there was a storm anywhere around, but indeed it was all around.

More of pine cut so that it finally was out of the shed so that we could cover the roof and patch the wall temporarily. We didn’t do any work on the shed for awhile as we were depressed. But, with time, inspiration struck and work began.

DH restored the little shed and here is the latest photo taken this week, 10 years later. I’ll have to show you what we did on the wall that was damaged in another post.

So, now you have the shell flower pot story, plus a little bit of Hurricane Wilma’s story.

We put pink muhly grass in the pots. Pretty in the fall/winter.

This sure sent me down memory lane. Some tears and laughter as I look back and think on things we did together.

FlowerLady

DH took a piece of one of the melaleuca tree limbs that came down in the three hurricanes we had to deal with 2004-2005, and made this heart for me.

Love is forever.

Sunrise, flowers, projects

Good morning everyone ~ Have already had T-storms and some rain this morning. More expected through the next few days. I decided to take my camera to the ‘jobsite’ this morning and I’m glad I did.  The colors were beautiful!

These next two shots were about 30 minutes later, colors gone.

This picture was taken in my driveway area after I got home. Street not very busy at this time of morning on a Saturday. The clouds are to the east, out over the ocean, which is about 3 miles away.

Loved the look of this statue this morning, the lighting was really nice.

The next photos are of the rose ‘Granada’.

This is one of the roses I got in trade with Connie of Hartwood Roses.  It is a seedling rose from the San Francisco cemetary.

This is an unknown miniature rose.

I found out about a new thrift store close to me that is huge and decided to go check it out. I only wanted to spend $20.  My bill was $20.13. I bought three pair of slacks, and a pair of Easy Spirit shoes, almost like new, $9.99.

Also bought this piece although it wasn’t necessary but it spoke to me and it was $2.99.  It looks like carved wood, but it is some sort of composite material.

I put it in the little screened porch off the kitchen, which is the entry way into my little cottage. I rearranged some pieces, but am going to tweak this whole area some more as I’m not really thrilled with it. I look forward to having the cottage outside walls painted too. (Still need to trim the a.c. unit.) The lion’s head fountain was given to me.  I need to paint it as the gray color just doesn’t work. Hmmm.

The galvanized bucket catches the water from the a.c. and I then use it to water plants.

The more I look at this arrangement, the more I’m not crazy about it at all.  At least looking at it here in the a.c. I can think of ways to rework it.

My latest project, was painting two wrought iron chairs (2 more to paint yet), and the trim on the shed’s door.

I wanted some sort of decoration to put on the door as it is a waiting canvas.

I got this out of my ‘stash’ of stuff that DH picked up through the years. It has a couple of hearts so is perfect.  I just need to do some repair and paint it, then screw it to the door.

That’s it for now.

Have a great weekend.

FlowerLady

***

"The very essence of the creative is its novelty,
and hence we have no standard by which to judge it."

Carl R. Rogers, On Becoming a Person