Blooms, lost-found, tide will turn, lots of photos

Hello Folks ~

I hope you are all doing well. I want to thank you again for get well wishes and prayers for DH. He is getting better and we are thankful for that. Since it hurts him to chew food, I’ve been making him smoothies for breakfast, and different soups for lunch and supper. We’ve had pumpkin/potato, potato/carrot, cauliflower/broccoli and there’s a pot of split pea soup for tomorrow. I’ve been adding organic beef and vegetable broths, herbs, spices, onion and garlic. I want to make a beet soup next. These soups are all blended so that he can just drink it up from a cup. 

I am so glad that he’s doing better. There’s still a way to go until he’s back to normal, but he’s so much better than he was. As oldsters, we think we are still able to do things, but age, heat, humidity, vitamin depletion, etc. can and do take their toll. We’ve learned from this experience in many ways. I’ve also been thinking more about those in chronic pain and about care-givers.

We felt a change in the air today when we were out running an errand.  It is the end of Sept. so there should be some changes going on and we enjoyed being outside.

Over the past week or so I ‘lost’ two things, couldn’t find them anywhere and I looked high and low. I finally told DH (dear husband) and he started thinking of places for me to look, some I had already looked into and others, no findy items. Yesterday morning I was still frustrated by not being able to find them,  I picked up my library book bag and ‘found’ one of the items, an embroidery book underneath. I let out a whoop and DH said you’re going to find the ‘scissors' next.  Between 5-10 minutes later, I was sitting here in my chair, and pulled the bigger scizzors out of their pouch stuck my fingers in the space, and lo and behold, there was the pair I was looking for. I was thrilled.  I hate misplacing things.  I usually find them sooner than I did these two items. I’ve been flustered and preoccupied with DH and how he’s feeling that it’s a wonder I didn’t lose more things.

The little scissors I got when my late MIL passed away, with other craft items, so they mean a lot to me. I love the patina on them.

You can see that the scissors each have their own little space in my pincushion, scissor and debris bag,(I won this several years ago in a drawing and love it).  I absentmindedly put the little scissors in the wrong pouch, then put the larger scissors on top of them. Now they are where they belong once again. Sheesh.

This is the heart I’ve been working on. I added the lace stitched on with French knots. I’ve still more embroidery and beading to do before I feel it is finished. The colors are a bit more subdued than in these two photos, because of the lighting.

This is a little heart I worked on the past few days.  I love it.  It is 2 1/2 inches wide by 2 1/4 inches high.

Now, here are blooms I took photos of yesterday morning. It was very cloudy.

Blanket flowers

A weed, that I think is a Florida native, not sure though.

A fallen frangipani bloom.

Hibiscus

Passion flower. These are so amazing I can’t quit taking photos of them.  They are still blooming and there are quite a few buds too.

Philippine violet

An old poinsettia that is getting ready for it’s time of year.

Salvia greggii

La Marne roses.

Louis Philippe

Climbing Maman Cochet

Louis Philippe growing up over my shed.

Front gate from the sidewalk.

Side front entry gate into patio area, off the driveway.

Driveway gate. I love the plumbago from next door, very pretty.

That’s it from soggy s.e. FL. We had quite a bit of rain over the weekend and lots of cloud cover. I hope today to be able to wash and hang out laundry as we’re supposed to have some sunshine and little if any rain.

I’ll close this with a quote I came across recently.

FlowerLady Lorraine

***

“When you get in a tight place and everything goes against you,

till it seems as though you could not hold on a minute longer,

never give up then,

for that is just the place and time that the tide will turn”.

Harriet Beecher Stowe, abolitionist and author.

A junker gone & blooming blooms

Good afternoon Folks ~ We sure are enjoying the cooler weather with less humidity.  It is really wonderful.  I hope you are all enjoying autumn here in the US.

For the next six months or so we will be enjoying nice weather and will be able to get some outdoor projects done, we hope. Things have a way of popping up and changing plans.

Here are some blooms from the past day or two.

Don Juan.

Gaillardia or Indian Blanket flower, along with tarragon, and spiderwort, growing in my shed’s garden.

Louis Philippe or Florida Cracker rose, this is also in my shed’s garden.

‘Love’ rose.

Here is a piece of coral with some little baby Mom-of-millions growing in crevices.

The next few pictures are of ‘Penelope’ rose.

I didn’t see the spider until I was editing pictures.

Here we have another favorite bloomer growing here, Philippine Violet. They volunteer all over the property and are very hardy.

French Tarragon with spiderwort in the background.  I love cooking with fresh tarragon.

‘Chrysler Imperial’ rose and another heart sachet in the works.  I love embroidering. I read today that knitting, crocheting and stitching are good for our health.  Great news.

Now, here is where the ‘junker’ comes into the story.  This was my car up until a couple of years ago. We bought another one as this one had problems, and after getting the other car, this one croaked.  We were going to sell it, but have been thinking that it would cost too much to get it going again so it’s been sitting there.  I just never showed it in pictures.  We had concrete blocks and patio stones stacked in front of it, and a few things leaning up beside it.

Yesterday morning as we left the grocery store parking lot we saw a sign that said they buy junker cars for $400. We wrote down the number and DH called them when we got home.  Well, they said they could be here in about 30 minutes.  YIKES, we had to hustle the stuff away from the car, and check the inside too. We had no sooner finished when the guy pulled up. In about 20 minutes the car was out of here.  Hurray.

This was taken yesterday. I did some more clean up this morning as I wanted to figure out how much more picket fencing we had to go from the other side to about 3’ away from the Gypsy Shed. (Remember, we got this picket fencing in sections about 24”-30” wide when someone cut up their fencing to throw away.) We even have a gate with neat hinges, and a latch. I just had the idea to paint them the plum color. I’m standing near the back of our property. We’ve got the little pile of junk (concrete blocks, etc.) to move yet.  DH sanded the spackled screw holes today and after he does a little more trim work on edges will probably be painting the wood on the shed. We put two ‘curbside shopped’ smoked windows over the original windows of the camper. He also caulked around those today too and some other areas that needed it.  This is a fun little project and once we’re all done, I’ll do a post of pictures from when it was a camper to what it will be.

It will be neat having the stove and sink, and little refrigerator back inside. When it was the ‘junker’ camper, we cooked in it for almost two weeks after losing electricity from hurricane Wilma. We have changed it’s look and will enjoy it as a little ‘get away’, now and then. Planted right here in our little haven.

There it goes! Yippee, the ‘junker’ is gone. Uh oh, I need to wash the lattice gates. With all the rain we’ve had, mold grew on them.

I mowed after the car left, as that had been my original plan, before we knew he was coming.

So, there’s the latest from Plum Cottage, maybe more than you wanted to hear or see.

I heard from my boss today and I’ll be working tomorrow through Friday.  He decided to go from the show in TX, to do a show in Atlanta, so will be back Sat. and will unload the truck and be at the shop that day.  I was going to the library tomorrow, but went after lunch today.

This probably is it from me for a few days.  I hope you all have a great week.

******

"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

Cool Colors Continued

This is a sweet little grass flower that only lasts a day.

I think below is 'Incense' passionflowers.
They are beautiful and smell sweetly also.

These are Phillipine violets

This beauty is Queen Crape Myrtle.
I had seen this for years around the area and finally found out what it was.
DH bought this for me last year.

Morning glories ~ unknown variety that grows year round.

More to come.

FlowerLady