Copy Catting......

    I tried to do a copy cat of Carol's display over at Art and Sand...You all know she is a wonderful stylist. She can arrange her whole house in a short time. She's very clever with her designs . She showed us blue and white dishes yesterday....well I thought, "Oh how cute, I am going to try that. "

  It's a gray day here and the lighting is awful. I tried no lights, then turned on the dining room lights. Talk about copying...I saw a little cow pitcher at Linda's  itsy bits and pieces, then just had to have one. LOL

 I had a blue willow dish and cup, old white platter, blue/white ball, fake candle, old pitcher, and some faux forsythia. With dining room lights.

   Without the  lights, and changing up the cow creamer and sphere on the little yellow pedestal.  I tried the candle in the teacup for many shots.

    Put the sphere on top of the candle, flipped the pedestal and put the cup on it. Put the pitcher in back with the plate.

  This is how I left it. I think this will work for a week or two...then onto another vignette. I must tell Carol coping isn't as easy as I thought it would be. :):) But it was fun.
  Rain in our forecast today and tomorrow. Bummer...we do not need it. Ted has mowed twice in one week.  Hope you are safe today. Please send good thoughts or prayers for those who have been in the floods or tornadoes.  XO

Foggy Friday....

    The fog is lifting...but it was really dense this morning.  We can almost see a mile , it's 8:00 am.

   Ted's hitching up his trailer. Has all his wood cutting tools packed up. He will be cutting wood with our SIL , today.  They will cut wood that can be seasoned for winter wood burning.  It's actually some trees that have been down in a lot at my daughter Karen's house.  So the fellows will have wood for winter and Karen will have all that cleaned up from her little farm plot.

 Wanted to show you the Japanese maple near the house. It's a dwarf tree, but I will trim limbs if needed .  I love to mix this burgundy color with greens. 
  It's been a busy week here and not much of great importance going on at this time.  So I truly need to get out of the house and do something fun or adventurous. I have a project I could work on. If I do that I will take photos. :):)
   We have had rain on and off and more to come this weekend with storms. I think our April showers are going to be coming here at the very end of the month and continue on into May.  I am hoping it ends this week. I know many farmers want into their fields. Our neighbor man has been on top of every nice day, so he is doing well.
  Enjoy this beautiful Friday everyone.  I hope it's a good day for all. XO

Starting This Week....

      This Monday is a great day.  Started very cloudy, cleared more as the day went along.. So I put the little walking stone out,  that  a gentleman make and sold at the farmers' market.  I bought this two years ago. It's a hummingbird drinking from the red flower. Sorry it came out upside down.

   The lilac that I started from my mother's lilacs in town. When my mother passed away in 2006 I dug up some little starts and they have grown into this  pretty bush. I was taking a picture of it from the porch and saw a butterfly land in it.

   So I go take a shot of all it's beauty.  So pretty, I love butterflies.

  I pulled the branch down closer and took his picture and I don't think he even knew.

  Then I find a little viola that has planted itself, near a black eye susan  . I am seeing lots of these free violas around the flower beds.  It's like a wee gift.
  The temperatures here have been in the 70's. It never got to 80 yesterday, as predicted.  Rain coming for about the rest of this week.  I hope all of you are enjoying the start of this week. XO

Saturday With My Sister....

    My sister Brenda came out on Saturday. I was just finishing laundry and a meatloaf in the oven. So she ate lunch with me and we visited. Then we go to her apartment.  I walked around her block and got some good pictures.

  All the pretty flowering trees are so hard to resist getting a photo.

  This little beauty was begging to have it's picture taken. You can see the big house is getting a make over. Or at least a new roof.

 This is the alley between my old doctor's office and one of my favorite houses in town.

   This across from my sister's apartment. Brenda and sister Jeanie live in the same building.

   Brenda asked me to go to a yard sale with her. She and Jeanie had gone earlier. It was a sale to raise money for missionaries to go to the inner city....in NYC. This is the neighborhood where it was held.

  I bought a small garden angel. Her wings look like a butterfly's. Still pretty cute for a dollar. She is holding a potted flower and a trowel.

  A bag of faux flowers for 2 dollars.  I shook them out and looked them over. ...not taking anything into my house that might have a rider. Not after the ant scare I  had this week. LOL. They are mostly fall flowers. I can decorate the porch with these this coming fall.

  I loved this  figurine of Jesus. It's called the Good Shepard. It was 2 dollars. So I spent 5 dollars on a yard sale. The money was for a good cause , making it money well spent.
    I enjoyed my time with my sister and walking. Sitting on the porch later and writing letters and cards. It was truly a beautiful day.
   Have a great Sunday everyone. XO

Beauty Of Spring.....

   While I was having fits of craziness this week (previous post), spring was doing it's thing . The crabapple has bloomed.

   This tree is covered in blossoms. it smells nice too.  The apples on it are about the size of a cherry.

   The weeping willow is very green with lots of streamers. The spirea is  turning green also.

   Can you see the little line along the driveway? It's the blossoms from the weeping cherry tree.

  Lots of soft pink petals. makes me feel like royalty walking done to get the mail. LOL

      The weeping cherry is leafing out. so green now. It's a light shade of green .

    Caught the bus dropping off our neighbor boy. He's a great kid. Sharp as a tack too.

   This is the mulch that Ted and I put in the flowerbeds on Thursday while waiting for the bug man. You can see it's a course mixture. Not to my liking, but it was given to Ted . I think he just heard "free" and was all for it. :):) It was a full trailer load , we were a bit sore from shoveling and raking it.

 My pansies are starting to look a bit nicer too. I will want more color for summer. So I better get busy deciding what I want to plant. I am not putting anything in the ground, flower wise. Don't trust that all the rabbits are gone. While mulching I found a rabbit's nest. It was grasses and fur from the mom rabbit. The babies have moved on.  The neighbor live trapped one. So has Ted.
   Well today is a bit calmer than this past week. Yippee on that. Going to be 67 here today and possibly 80 tomorrow.  Hope all of you are doing well. Get outside if you can and enjoy the good weather.  XO

Have You Ever......

 .....ever , had a week you were glad to see it end ??? This was one for me. Thankfully I did have Joy in most of it...cause I count my blessings. Had to reschedule Monday's  dentist appointment till Thursday . That ended up well( I guess). The dentist picked and  probed and x-rayed, said there was nothing wrong. (Awkkk) Still calling it sensitivity . I will have to have it x-rayed again in July when I get my cleaning. OK ..that will be good.

 Tuesday afternoon, I found an ant on the table !!!!. I got rid of him...then sat down on the sofa and there were  two on the cushion with me and two on the end table....I am instantly insane.  I get rid of those and go searching for more.. I find them near the fireplace., about seven more . Then I think , there's three small logs still in the wood box. Thinking that's where they are coming from, I take that wood out, I do not see any more ants..but I spray Raid anyway. I get up twice in the night to see if anymore are around. No...good. I go Wednesday to get my mammogram and bone density scan. Wow, so lucky, in and out in half an hour. ....because the scan room and mammogram area are side by side.  I beat it home and call the pest control. They set up to come Thursday at two. So as I told you I went to the dentist., Thursday morning,.The timing was good.

  The young bug-man comes , he is  so polite and professional. (refreshing). Treats the house inside and out. Told us it was just ants..not the dreaded carpenter ants. (Blessing) Ted and I had just put out all the mulch before he got there. Now it is raining on and off the whole day. While the fellow sprayed, it did not rain. He said as long as it was not a downpour...it would work and once it dried it would be better. As soon as he leaves it rains a bit. Later it rains more , stops and rains again later. Then In the night we had thunder storms. Mild.  Today I got my blood work finished. You know that cholesterol check.   No ant sightings so far.  Right now I really do not have anything stressful  to dwell on. Hooray !!!!
  Looking forward to this weekend. Hope all of you can enjoy your weekend also.  XO

Ocean Decor........

    These are left over photos from a shop in Middlebury, when I was with my daughter Kathy. If you click on the pictures , they will enlarge and you can see the smaller items.

   This looks like something fun for a pool house. Or sun porch at a lake. I think I wore a suit like that blue one when I was a kid. :)

    I wish I had touched this whale statue...just to see what it was made from. I loved the color of it. I do not think those coral pieces are real....they surely just manufacture  those things now.

  This is a jumbled up shot. I was going for the driftwood mobile and the wooden whale on two dowel rods sitting on a wooden base.

    I thought these lady figurines were cute. Kind of old fashion in their attire. Body covering suits and swim caps.

 

   These figurines were placed along side serving dishes  and coasters. Don't you love their poses?

      Lots of seaside blue color. The paintings of the sail boats ...I really did like them.  Candles with fresh scents. I like the big lantern . My daughter like the signs. Coastal and  beach spelled out with rope and sewn to a piece of rabbit fencing.

This picture has little lights for the stars and the lighthouse beam. I thought it could be a nite-lite  possibly. Love the color of the  cabinet it is leaning against.
   Had to reschedule my dental appointment for Thursday. Just more time to fret. :)   Mean time I just keep brushing, flossing and praying.
   The weather has been so good here. A thin cloudy look with sunshine today. Yesterday, opened  the windows and aired out the house. It was heavenly.  Listening to birds singing and squabbling.  Ted dug out the fire pit and hauled all the wood ash to our friend's garden.  Then he got  our water features  cleaned and freshly filled .  I cleaned up and rearranged the porch.  Still some things to do there.
   Hope everyone's Tuesday is good.  Let's keep those in danger of floods in the south, in our thoughts and prayers.  XO

Sunday Bouquet....

    I could not resist picking some blossoms off the weeping cherry tree.

   To me there's no fragrance in these blossoms. But they do have beauty. Yesterday was a wonderful day in Indiana. The best blue skies and warm temperatures.   I did get all the pansies planted that I bought at the end of March. 
  People were out and about in our town.  Even I went to the grocery....the shelf stockers were smiling down on me . The store was not crowded and did not get crowded while I was there. I saved 10 dollars with my coupons too.

  The day ended without a cloud in the sky.  Today is to be just as nice. I will be joining my daughter for brunch today.  We may get well into this week before the weather changes. My first thing to do tomorrow is go to the dentist....well all of you know how happy that makes me.   Yikes , my hair is already standing on end. I need an x-ray , the thing my dentist keeps calling sensitivity . I think is some thing else.
  Wishing all of you lovely people out there a glorious Sunday.  XO

Friday Fun Day.....

  I am going to show some photos of spring here, while I tell of my Friday. Because some times we are too surprised to take pictures...or take along our cameras. You can see how nicely Ted mowed on Thursday .

  The weeping cherry tree is blooming . The plum bush is leafing out with it's burgundy color.

   You can see the pale pink of the cherry blossoms against the green pines.

 

.  It's been sunny here for five days , counting this Saturday morning. I think spring is here to stay .

 

   Yesterday my daughter Liz called and said she was coming over to visit. When she arrived she had her daughters Lynzie and Emma with her. Emma was out of school for the built in snow day the school had left. They also brought baby Max. :):) As soon as we were on the road, I realized I didn't bring my camera. Waaa.
    We went to eat lunch at Dairy Queen. Emma  likes to go there. Then we went to the florist shop to ask the owner how her husband was doing. Visited the antique store also. Then we went to the school , signed in with my daughter Angie's permission. Angie's class was having a swim period. We got to watch the students swim and visit with Angie. 
  As we were entering into the area of the natatorium , I could hearing singing. The high school choir was rehearsing in the next hallway. They sounded so good.
  Liz brings me home, I get hugs and the day is over. It was a fun surprise and I truly enjoyed the whole day. Hope all of you are having a fun weekend. XO

Sunny Days...

    I know it's been about a month since Spring arrived officially.  With the sun shining the past 3 days, I think spring may truly be here. I surely do hope so.  Ted mowed the lawn today...twice, had to rake it too. It had grown so much with the rain we had. After his shower and he was dressed, it was time for a good lunch.   So off to Red Lobster we went.  (Gert, wish you could have gone with us. ) I just could not eat my lunch. Gave most of it to Ted...who by then had eaten 4 biscuits.  Almost had to roll him to the truck. LOL

 He basically gets the same thing all the time. Sailor's platter. Fish, shrimp scampi, and fried shrimp. Gets broccoli and a salad. This time he drank water...no tea.  I told him he worked up an appetite. Mowing and weed whacking. The lawn looks good...should have taken a photo.
     Hope all of you had a good day. Thank you to everyone who commented on my blogging for 5 years.  I appreciate every one of you. You are my extended family. Bless you. XO