A wet Labor Day

Good morning Folks ~ For those in the US I hope you are enjoying this holiday.  Down here in s.e. FL we are having rain and more rain from Tropical Storm Gordon. At least it’s not a hurricane, although I did read ‘possible tornadoes’. This is the peak of hurricane season, I pray that we are spared this year.

A rainy day view out of the south living room window.

(Stained glass window made for me by Karen and Carl of ‘Quarry Gardens’ blog, after I lost my DH. Two hearts joined as one,  with a rose which is a symbol of love.

This morning before waking up I dreamed I was going to get to use my new electric lawn mower for the first time. HA! It was delivered via UPS last Wednesday and I’ve not been able to try it out because of wet grass. The grass will get even higher as rain is expected over the next few days.

This is my new lawn mower still in the box. I did get the handle in upright position and locked into place, then wheeled it to the shed, but that’s it so far. I haven’t even read the instruction booklet. Here is the Amazon link about it.

Last week a friend stopped by on her way home from work to drop off a beautiful orchid a client had given to her. She said she would kill it, and thought of giving it to me. It is sitting here in my space. It came with a plastic shot glass and a card saying to water it with a shot of water once a week. Hopefully I can keep it alive.

Saturday morning it was raining and I knew I wasn’t going to be mowing so I got the urge to do some more painting of living room walls. I am a ‘porcrastinator’ and being a widow and doing things for myself, sometimes by myself isn’t much of a motivation to get things done.

But, after my friend, Mary, was here delivering the orchid and we sat and chatted for awhile in my messy abode that is in the midst of remodeling work, I felt like painting more. I made forward progress on the north wall, still a 4’ section of wall to do, but I have to move a bookcase out of the way first. Hopefully, I’ll do that this week.

After painting, I decided, since the west wall was now finished except for the baseboard, to set up a temporary ‘look’ for that wall, to make it look ‘pretty’ in here. I moved the handmade piece of furniture from beside the loveseat to that wall, moved a painting from another wall to this one, moved some smalls around and am enjoying and being more motivated by the new look.  This won’t be how it ‘will be’, but at least it’s not the bare wall staring at me.

I really love the Behr ‘Bleached Linen’ paint color. I said before that it has a ‘hint of joy’ in it and it most certainly does, at least to me.

Dear Husband and I set up at a local flea market for around 15 years, over 25 years ago and the painting is one of my finds at this market. It was upside down leaning against the seller’s car. I asked how much and they said $2. I didn’t hesitate, didn’t quibble, just paid and hurriedly left the spot with prize in hand.

The clock has no guts, I’m thinking of putting a battery operated movement in it. I set the hands at the time of when my DH was welcomed by Jesus to the next part of his life. All is well. (Found these paintings online in 2014 and just love what they represent.)

This represents my ‘knight’ in blue jeans and a t-shirt, his clothing of choice.

Jesus welcoming Him to be with Him.

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The two bronze deer pictured below, we bought most likely at this same market, but I don’t know. One of DH’s finds.

The children’s blocks were another find of my husbands, and I picked out these letters after he left this planet. The alphabet is not complete by any means so I was blessed to have found all of these for this special word.

We bought this handmade piece of furniture from DH’s brother, when we had our antique shop for 8 years, for $25, what he paid for it. We decided to not sell it but keep it and it is one of my favorite pieces here at Plum Cottage.  I recently bought some Pledge oil spray and polished this down with it and it now glows.

I decided this look needed a bit of light, so added the pink himalayan salt lamp. Nice ambience especially on a gloomy day.

Like I said, this look is only temporary. It will be changed to two matching bookcases, with a tv/media stand in the center, with a faux mantle shelf in between two bookcases over the tv.

While doing this little arrangement I went through more books and weeded some out, still more weeding to do, but at least I made a start.

I want to thank you all for your kind comments about my gardens. You say such wonderful things about them. What you don’t see is all that I see. I take selective shots showing only the best. I’ve much weeding, trimming, and now mowing to do yet. Not to mention ‘junk’ to be cleared from the property that I will never use.

Your kind words encourage me to keep working here. Gardening is good therapy for body, soul and spirit. Yesterday or the day before I unearthed from a stack of books a beautiful one sent to me by a blogging friend, Gina, in a care package right after I lost my husband. The book is “Sancturay ~ Gardening for the Soul”. I found a link for it on Amazon.

This book not only has beautiful photos but is wonderful reading material. I highly recommend it. Going through it again, inspired me to continue puttering in my gardens, doing what I can and enjoying it all. It’s the process/journey, more than the destination/finished garden look.

Leslie from ‘Spruce Pine Cottage’ has this latest post, ‘Habitat for the Soul’, which I think you will enjoy.

Now for some ‘selective’ garden photos from Plum Cottage gardens.

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‘Barnhouse’ roses

‘Prosperity’ roses

‘Alamandas’

Night blooming jasmine

4 O’clock blooms

Vine covered back shed

I received a devotional the other morning and in it was the verse about Jesus praying for Peter. I looked up the scripture reference and Jesus told Peter he was pleading for him that Peter’s faith should not fail. This was before Peter’s 3 time denial of knowing Jesus. But, Peter did repent after that, and became a great light of God’s love for the world.

Since Jesus prayed for Peter, it stands to reason, that He prays for us all to stand strong in our faith in Him. It’s not always easy, but He has promised to never leave or forsake us, and will be with us every step of our journey. When we believe in Jesus, the Creator of the universe comes to live within us. To think He prays on our behalf is wonderful. We go through and hopefully grow through struggles in our lives, to bring us closer to Him.

I looked up this scripture in my ‘Inspire’ Journaling Bible and added the following to the page where this verse is found, which is in Luke 22:32.

I will close with the following photo of a cross stitch needlework I did while we were newlyweds living in Spain while DH was in the US Navy. This was for my late MIL and I received it after she and my late FIL’s estate was settled.

Have a wonderful week.

FlowerLady