Looking Up and Looking Down

Hello and

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 to you my friends. 

I wish I had a pretty vignette or tablescape to share with you today, but I do not. Trust me, you would not want to look at my table right now! It is covered in my kitchen stuff that did not get packed up. Not exciting...at all!

Anywho, I felt the need to go outside for a bit and soak up some of this glorious Florida sunshine and warm breezes. It is a spectacularly gorgeous day today. I have been contemplating life a lot lately. I've had a lot on my mind...besides the kitchen remodel that is. This little walk around the yard was good for me. It helped me clear my head of the negativity that sometimes like to creep into my happy thoughts.

You know, real life stuff...heavy stuff. Seems I'm either very happy or very sad lately. Fortunately the happiness wins out the majority of the time, but those sad times are so hard on my heart.

Life has so many ups and downs.

I try hard to keep it real here on my little blog, thus the reason I'm even typing this post. Life is unfortunately, not all sunshine and roses.  But, life is good and God is great and He takes my worries from me when they get too heavy for me to carry around. He's good like that!

As I was reviewing these photos to share, I realized that almost all of them were shots either looking up or down. Kind of my life...kind of like your life too if I had to guess. 

I'm sitting here listening to the Blend on TV. I love music and so funny how songs speak to you when you're in a contemplative mood. They reach out and squeeze your heart so much it hurts or cause tears to roll slowly out of the corners of your eyes. And on the flip side, sometimes they are so catchy, I find myself dancing while I work...:)

Have you heard I Hope You Find It by Cher? It's a really pretty song. 

I love the chorus....

And I hope you find itWhat you're looking forI hope it's everything you dreamed your life could beAnd so much more

And I hope you're happy, wherever you areI wanted you to know thatAnd nothing's gonna change thatI hope you find it

It got me thinking....and I can honestly say I'm happy. Very happy. 

Can I ask for more?

And my answer to that question is yes....I can. 

I want for those I love the most to be happy too. Life isn't just about me and my happiness. And again, I find myself turning it over to God, praying for happiness for those I know are struggling to find it. And, I'll keep praying until they do.

Thank you for listening to me ramble. I am grateful for each of you dear readers friends. I appreciate the fact that I can use my blog to catalog not only my home improvements, thrifty finds, trips and so on, but also my thoughts and feelings from time to time. I'll never be the blog that has thousands of followers. I don't want that. It would leave me with no time to communicate with you faithful friends that visit me often and leave me the most wonderful comments.....even when I sometimes can't find time to reply. It makes my heart happy to have friends around the world, friends I've never met in person, but friends just the same. Again, I thank you.

Until next time.....

Color Me Happy

Hello and happy day to you!
Do you ever have one of those days where you feel like you accomplished so much more than usual? Today was one of those days for me. It started off with a trip to Gainesville (an hour away) to return something and pick up a few necessities. It was a successful trip and I came home with several Christmas items purchased at 90% off. I bought strands of GE 100 white twinkle lights for the porch next year for $0.59 per box. I bought a few other odds and ends as well. Score! Mama rode with me and we ate a nice lunch at Sonny's. We arrived home just after one in the afternoon and I immediately started cleaning out my craft room. It was a HUGE mess! This is a favorite area of my happy space...Crayola Corner...although it actually isn't a corner. :)

Isn't it cute....and colorful? It makes me smile!

I hung this picture above the area...thought it was fitting. What do you think? Notice the word I pointed out in the poem. Mama gave this to me years ago.

I cleaned and organized and purged for a few hours and then set out to meet Mama and Nancy (my sister), along with our dogs for our daily walk. Here is Sadie and Sassy walking ahead of us on Mama and Daddy's property.

The sun was setting as we were walking. Here it is peeking through the trees as it says good-bye.

You may remember the Cedar branches I cut during Christmas to decorate the house. Well, this is the Cedar tree they were cut from. That's Mama standing under it. I asked her to so you could see the massive size of this beautiful tree. There are a couple more close to this size too. 

I love this old oak tree on the back of my property. We decided just to walk around out land today instead of out on the paved road. The dogs can run free here. I would love to have a little cottage back here on my property to sneak away to and read a good book or just ponder life. Maybe someday...maybe a tree house for future grandchildren.

This moss covered log caught my eye. The bright green against the dead, brown leaves just begged to be photographed. 

The pear tree in Mama's yard is blooming. The cold will get it but it will bloom again in the spring. 

See the huge sun kissed ball of mistletoe in the top of this tree. Mistletoe is made for kissing...lol!

Anywho, after a long and lovely walk, I came home to continue working in my craft room and then started on the guest room closet. I am pleased to announce that I finished both projects and cleaned out more than a large box full of junk stuff to haul to consignment. I also enjoyed reading several chapters of the novel I'm reading, Snow Falling On Cedars. Great book I might add! After that, I completed a couple things for school tomorrow, printed them, and am now typing up this post to share with you. I am about to do my bible reading and prayer journaling as well, and then read some more of my novel. I love days like this. I pray the rest of the week is as productive. I do hope you have a wonderful week.
Until next time.....

 

 

Catching Up!

Can I just say....I love weekends! I have had a busy week and am so happy the weekend is here. My last day of school was Monday but Tuesday through Friday I attended a professional development math workshop over an hour away from home. There were seven of us that went and I learned a few new things. I definitely have a different perception of math and teaching math after this week. I'm looking forward to making some changes in my curriculum for next school year. Anywho, yesterday was my son's 19th birthday, so after the workshop, I came home and made lasagna and Texas toast, and cookie pudding for dessert. That was his request. We had our family over and celebrated my mama's birthday (hers is Sunday) and Father's Day as well. June is a busy month around here! To make it even busier, we celebrated my niece, Taylor's graduations today. I'll be sharing pictures tomorrow. She wanted a travel theme and I was the decorator...lots of fun! So...this evening, I am too pooped to party any longer. I decided to kick back in the recliner and take it easy for the rest of the day. That decision led me to pop in the SD card from the camera and see what I could share with you all...:)

First thing is these delicious fresh blueberries! Mama and Daddy picked about 10 gallons earlier this week. We are blessed to be able to pick all we want for free from a blueberry farm owned by my son's friend and his family. Aren't they gorgeous? They tasted just as good as they look! 

Here is one day's yield on Mama's dining room table...:) She puts a ton of them in the freezer for baking throughout the year and she made jam as well. Do you like blueberries? They are so good for you! Did you know they are in the top 10 healthy foods? 

While visiting and eating blueberries, I snapped a picture of one of the baby birds on Mama's front porch. The mom built her nest in the angel wing begonia hanging on the front porch. The babies are getting big...:) 

We went outside to walk and I snapped a couple pictures of two pretty dragonflies. I love the bright green on this one.

And this one is a pretty shade of blue.

Up the road, we heard a rustle in the leaves on the side of the road and saw this little guy. Do you see him? Know what it is?

Many of you have probably never seen one in real life. It's an armadillo. One of the strangest looking creatures on Earth. This one is a baby. As we say around here..it's so ugly, it's cute! LOL

Monday, I only had to work a couple hours and then I had to go to our neighboring town to the school district's transportation department to pick up a van to drive our group to the workshop through the week. While I was in town, I went by one of my favorite consignment shops and found two things worthy of bringing home. First is this wooden box. It's an interesting box, it reminds me of an old school desk with the way the lid slants. It will be getting a paint job and either live on my husband's night stand to hold "stuff" or possibly turned into a charging station for our phones. It was $1.99.

The other item is this white pitcher/creamer. I like the raised berry and vine design on it and for $1, it had to come home and join my collection...:) The awesome thing was that this is the consignment I sell my clothes and things in and I actually had over $100 in my account, so I had her cut me a check....:)

So..that's my week in a nutshell! I have a reading/writing workshop all next week at the same place, so another busy week ahead. I leave a week from tomorrow for a two day conference in Tampa as well. I am really excited about that one! I'll be back tomorrow to share some pictures from the graduation party. Hope your Saturday has been a good one!

Until next time.....

 

 

Walking on Faith

Today I'm sharing a beautiful, local spot that I always enjoy visiting. 

This old train trestle crosses over the Suwannee River and is now used as part of a walking path called the Nature Coast State Trail. Last Saturday I walked to it to see my niece Taylor have some pictures taken before her prom. While we were there, I snapped a couple photos to share. 

I love the architecture of this old train trestle and the rusty patina makes it even more gorgeous. 

Our Suwanee River is so high right now. There is no possibility of taking the boat out any time soon due to the logs and debris floating in the water. It is very dangerous when it is so high. This is the third summer in a row that our river has been too high to go boating. I miss it...it is always soothing to my soul. Life is so busy right now and some health issues for both myself and my hubby have me worried. I would love to take a ride out on this beautiful river to restore some peace to my soul. I just have to keep my faith and give my worries over to God. That is so much easier said than done sometimes though. I am trying...I really am. I would appreciate any thoughts or prayers you have to offer. 

Want to see something pretty? Look at the gardenias I picked from my mama's yard. I just love these gorgeous white blooms and the smell is heavenly!

Now...just one more thing....I want to share a bit of AWESOME news! 

Some of you have been praying for my friend Heather who has Stage 4 Colon cancer that had spread to the liver. Well, Monday she had a PET scan and MRI and 3 of the 4 spots on her liver are gone and the 4th one has shrunk by 1/3 and she's only halfway through her chemo! God is working a miracle in Heather's body. She is so full of faith and positivity and so am I! I have felt all along that God was going to heal her. She still needs the prayers as she has a long way to go but I just wanted to update you. 

Her son took this picture of her...he has recently taken up her photography hobby. He is really good!

Thanks so much for thinking of and praying for my beautiful friend. 

Have a blessed and beautiful rest of the week!

Until next time.....

A Walk and a Few Finds!

Care to go walking with me? In the midst of my spring cleaning, I have carved out time to do things that feed the soul. One of those things are my evening walks. I met mama down the road and she had a little treat for me. Check out these huge grapes! She bought them at Sam's Club. I have never seen such huge grapes in my life. I thought they were plums to begin with...lol!

We walked down Willie Mae Lane to my Aunt Loretta's house for a short visit.  This pine tree branch frames the goat pasture beautifully. You can even see one of the goats if you look close.

So pretty close-up.

The wild grapevine is budding out. These fresh, tiny leaves are so pretty.

OK...here we are...at Aunt Loretta's place. Aren't her azaleas just gorgeous? Chip is getting up from his resting spot to greet us.

The wild ivy trails down from the live oak tree in huge clusters.

The bridal wreath blooms are so fresh..I love the crisp white.

Love this shot with the old cattle trailer in the background...and a glimpse of the old shed.

The sun was setting and shining through the green glass of the hummingbird feeder. This reminds me I need to fill mine so I will get some of the little visitors. The lavender wisteria is the perfect companion to the arbor.

This old metal bird house is so charming with all the layers of chippy paint and an old nest peeping out the hole.

We had a lovely visit with Aunt Loretta but had to get back home before dark, so we headed back up Willie Mae Lane. Along the way, I noticed two large rocks...one lime rock and one asphalt from our road that is partially covered in milling. I kicked them to the side of the road one at a time and this is where they came to a rest. I promise I didn't stage them...:) I do love a sweet vignette, but this would be going too far! Even my sharing the picture is going a little too far...I promise I'm not crazy...lol!

I thought it was pretty and I instantly though of the old song...Ebony & Ivory. Remember it? Ebony and Ivory....live together in perfect harmony. Side by side on my piano keyboard oh lord why don't we.

Here...just listen to it yourself...:)

Remember above I said I have been carving out a little time to have some fun. Well, today I went to Gainesville with my mom after I dropped Sadie off a the vet to be spayed. We had a great day! We ate a delicious lunch at 4 Rivers Smokehouse, then went to the Goodwill and Habitat for Humanity ReStore. That was my first trip there and I was disappointed with the prices. Way too high! I did get a couple little things....and a few free books. I love these old books to decorate with. One of the things I will share soon and the other is to put in my Etsy shop. 

I bought this ginormous dictionary for some projects I have in mind for my Etsy shop. It weighs just under 10 pounds. I know because I weighed it on my new postal scale that had been delivered while I was out and about...:) I paid $5 for it but will make way more than that off the projects I have in mind.

I was really good today and passed up several items I normally would have tossed in my cart. I am trying really hard to only buy things I have a definite plan for or that are on my list. At the Goodwill, I found something that made me swoon! Check out this grey jacquard fabric below. It is a huge piece...approximately 5'X10'. It is hemmed on all edges and I believe it was a tablecloth. I'll be using it, along with a couple other fabrics to create a gorgeous new comforter for my bed. I am beyond thrilled with this purchase...it was $4.99!

I laid it on top of my existing comforter to get a feel for it and I am going to love it! I've been scouring Fabric.com for the past hour looking for some companion prints to finish it and to make curtains with. Excited about my new project...:)

Did you notice that amazing pillow? I purchased it a few weeks ago to put away until I get everything together for my room redo. It is burlap with silver glitter...I am in love with it. It is going to be perfect with the room I have envisioned!

I bought a few other items at the Goodwill...three for resale and one to redo before I share. I also bought this unopened package of doilies to use in my Etsy packaging. They were only $0.99.

So, that's it! Much less than my usual...right? We went to Sam's Club and I bought some grocery items and then we headed home. It was a really nice day out with mama....always is!

Oh...by the way, Sadie made it through her surgery and is currently snoozing on the couch. She is so groggy and disoriented from the anesthesia. Poor baby...:( I'm sure she'll be feeling a little more normal tomorrow. Have a fantastic Friday everyone. I am hoping to get the paint out tomorrow so maybe I will have a new project to share soon! 

Until next time.....