Tag Archives: spring

Busy!

Oh, my goodness, what a packed full weekend!  When there is too much to write about, I don’t, sorry.  I should have been posting all weekend . . . so very sorry to neglect you all.

I hope all of you moms that celebrate Mother’s Day had a wonderful day filled with happy times and maybe a little pampering.  I started a load of laundry yesterday morning and the clothes magically got put away.  My husband and daughter gifted me with a new Kindle and a bunch of red orange tulips.  I’ve been wanting a Kindle for reading library books; I think I’ll really like it and use it all the time (that is when I’m not sewing, knitting, embroidering, or crocheting, etc.)  LOL!

tulips 475

I always get asked what I want to do on Mother’s Day.  Every year my answer is something leisurely.  Do you know what I said this year?  Yard work!  Yep, that’s how we spent a good portion of the day.  Our messy garden beds were starting to weigh me down and now most of them are nice and clean.  And, it was really nice spending time working hard with my daughter at my side.  While my daughter and I worked around the front of the house, my husband was busy at the back and spent the entire day outside.  I don’t know how he does that!

Afterwards, my daughter made me a late lunch complete with a big bowl of strawberry ice cream!  That ice cream was well deserved, don’t you think?

This morning my hamstrings are quite sore and I have a bright red sunburned stripe where my back waistband didn’t quite meet the bottom of my t-shirt.  Oops!  Thank goodness for aloe gel.

roses 471

 Here’s one of my three rose bushes.  We had to scrape away millions of tiny seedlings growing around the rosebushes.  (I don’t think I got them all either.)  One of the rosebushes had so many tiny forget-me-nots growing around it; it looks like it has died.  I saw a few green branches, so hopefully it will catch up to the other two.

back yard bed 426Even though I tried, I couldn’t get all of the grass pulled out that is growing through the phlox.  If anyone has a helpful tip for this, please, please, let me know.

I have more outdoor photos to show you tomorrow.

Today I need to remake Patience’s dress.  😦  The bodice is too long for the sweater and just looks odd.  I hate redoing things, but it has to be done.  Better get to work . . .

 I hope everyone’s week is starting off nicely.  Bye for now!

It’s a Sunny Morning!

It’s beautiful outside!  The sun is shining, the sky is BLUE, the birds are singing!  Glorious! I snapped a few photos to show you, so I can share my sunshine with you.  My kitchen faces west, but you can see shadows in the grass.

orchids 243

And, out the front door (east) the yard is all nice and sunny.  When I am sitting at my kitchen table I can look out both the west facing bay window and the east facing front door.

honeysuckle 237

You can see the last remaining white magnolia blossoms and to the right is one of our (?) flowering bushes.  We also have a larger one which got a little clipping yesterday.  I made a bouquet with quite a few of its blossoms.  They smell absolutely heavenly!

Does anyone know for sure what these are?  We didn’t plant them, so we don’t know.  They smell and look like lilacs, but I couldn’t find this variety anywhere on the internet.  Last year, I must have found a photo of these because I then thought that they were honeysuckle.  I just now searched for honeysuckle and these do not look like the photos I found at all.  Hmmm… any help would be greatly appreciated.  Thank you.

honeysuckle 236

honeysuckle 238

honeysuckle 239

Thanks to Orli and April for the links to my flower question from yesterday.  These are called Creeping Charlie here in the U.S. with a European version called Lamium amplexicaule.  Yesterday I discovered this “weed” growing in our yard, but with the fuchsia or magenta blossoms.  They are from the mint family, so a bouquet might be nice.

IMG_2591

Hope you all have a beautifully sunny day.  If not, I’m sending some your way.

Bye for now!

It’s May!

It’s May, but it doesn’t feel like it around here.  We are on day 6 of dreary, dark, usually rainy weather.  Ugh, ugh, ugh!  Really, I am so very tired of it.  When it is so dreary day upon day, it takes a real mental workout just to get out of bed in the morning.

One thing that I’ve started doing in the last few days is to count my blessings (and I have many) before I get up, so I can get up on the right side versus the wrong side of the bed.  It makes all the difference to get out of bed with a grateful heart rather than a “woe is me” feeling inside.

Once I get up, this is how I start my mornings on these dark days–30 minutes of blue light (and a cup of coffee or tea 🙂 ).  The blue light really make all the difference in how I sleep at night (as long as I remember to stay off of the computer a couple of hours before bedtime).

IMG_2594

Just to show you how dreary it’s been… I think this was taken on Thursday or Friday.

FullSizeRender

In addition to the clouds, we’ve been getting lots of rain too.  A mallard couple thought that our pool cover was a pond and flew right in yesterday.  The feral cat was on the deck, the dog was barking at them, and they didn’t care; they stayed awhile and swam around.

P1320231

One of the blessings that I took note of on Saturday morning was the sunshine we got at 5:00 pm on Friday.  I know, not much, but I’ll take what I can get.  I made sure my BJD resin dolls were out of the sunlight and opened the curtains in my sewing room.  It was so nice and warm!

IMG_2603

Unfortunately, my last doll outfits (the one I just finished for Sugar) and the one I’ve been working on all week are in blue.  Couldn’t I pick something in yellow?  It is really hard to work with blue when it is dreary.  I think I will look at the weather forecast the next time I want to make something in blue.  lol

garden of blues 221

Here are some photos from the last time I took a sunshine-y walk (last Monday).  The violets were blooming; I love violets!

IMG_2589

IMG_2593

Even dandelions are pretty (I think so anyway).

IMG_2592

These teeny tiny purple flowers bloom in large patches in the grass this time of year.  They look like a carpet of purple.  Does anyone know what they are?  They are super duper tiny; you can see that they make the dandelion appear huge.

IMG_2591

We are supposed to have a very nice week, so that is what I am counting on, but I am aware that you cannot count on the weather, so I had better prepare myself… just in case.