One Year Ends, A New One Begins

Good New Year’s Eve day ~ I hope you’ve all had a relaxing, reflective week between Christmas and New Year’s day tomorrow. This year has zipped right along. I am looking forward to seeing what adventures God will bring my way in 2017. He saw me through this past year’s ups and downs, He has been my strength when I was weak. He gave me things to make me smile, some to laugh right out loud, and there were things that also made me sad and shed more healing tears. I am thankful to Him for taking care of me each and every day, for lessons learned and lessons yet to learn.

Christmas day started off with me driving the turnpike to a half-way point between my dear BIL & SIL, where my BIL picked me up. I left my van in the toll booth’s parking area, and we headed north to where they live, about another 30 minutes away. I left home around 6:20, got home just about 12 hours later.  Traffic wasn’t too bad on the way up, but on the way back it was a little heavier.

It was a good day.  Family, love, laughter, a nice Christmas service, and good food. I only got  a little teary after dinner when we all sat around singing old hymns, and when we sang ‘When We All Get to Heaven’, that did it.  It was a lovely day though, and I didn’t have to drive in the ‘dark’ for very long. I was glad to arrive safely back home to my sweet little haven. I don’t like driving busy roads at high speeds, but I made it to and from, so that was my Christmas adventure.

Tuesday my back started cramping between shoulder blades, an area where I get ‘tight’. Well, by Tuesday night it was really bad and I decided to take some of my Christmas $ and see my massage therapist Carmen. I texted her, and she had an opening at 9 Wed. morning. She is wonderful and she worked on me for almost two hours.  She said I was really TIGHT there and in a couple of other areas as well. I could hardly get up off the table after she was finished, and was ready to fall asleep. Lucky for me she’s less that 5-10 minutes away. I came home, had a little lunch, drank water, napped, drank more water and just lazed around. I’ve basically been lazy ever since. No heavy work, or ‘tight’ work.

It’s been a stressful month and a half and with working on beaded things, I really just wound right up. I will show some of what I beaded, will show two other pieces later.

I did do a little more beading yesterday evening on another heart that will end up in my Etsy shop when I re-open it. I’m crocheting the edging now. I’ve set up an old wooden TV tray to work on instead of trying to use my keyboard area. This is much nicer and I can look right out into the front patio.

Yesterday morning I started working on rearranging my beading/creative/embroidery area. I was inspired by one of my blogging friends, Nancy of ‘A Joyful Cottage’. She had just done some work in her creative space and showed before and after pics. Here is the start of my reorganizing.

Before

After ~ I brought in two glass blocks from outside, cleaned them up, and put a 35 1/2 inch glass shelf that I had stashed in the bedroom, on top. I took out the artistic lamp and brought in another desk type, which makes the space feel and look larger.  This whole little room is only 6’x8’.

The colorful ends in photo below, are the caps to my alcohol ink pens for coloring silk ribbon for my ribbon embroidery. They are now sitting over the bin drawer of silk ribbon.

It was nice coming out here this morning to a different look. I look forward to doing more in here as it is cluttered with yarns, felt, fabric, etc. that needs to be put away.

Last night as I was sitting here at my computer I looked to my left and oh my, the sky was absolutely beautiful. I grabbed my camera, took the first photo from my chair, then headed outdoors.

I loved how the sun was hitting the pine trees.

Look at those swirls of color under the puffs. WOW!

The sunset colors hitting the front outside wall of my creative sapce was amazing. It made the color more plumy. The black metal hearts are going to be a painting project soon. I can hardly wait. They were my first curbside find after my dear husband left this planet. I was thrilled because they are ‘hearts’.

Some rose blooms to end this post.

This is Barnhouse, taken yesterday,

and the open bloom today. This has such a lovely scent.

Below is ‘Miss Atwood’, she is just gorgeous and has a wonderful scent too.

This is a baby plant that I got this past spring from Rose Petals Nursery. I had two blooms, one a bud and the other open, yesterday.

I just love how these petals curl over, and the colors are beautiful.

Ok, that’s it from Plum Cottage for 2016.

Happy 2017

to all,

FlowerLady