My life is to make everything around me beautiful.

Friday, October 28, 2011

Pink Saturday Apron Giveaway #6

Our weather has changed dramatically in the past few days, getting much colder. I looked out the patio window this morning and thought I'd get a few pictures of the last vestiges of summer. Fall is officially here. Our cherry tree got zapped by a frost a few nights ago, but today it's looking even more frosted. I can see Love Bunny's mower tracks in the grass. It crunched under my feet at about 9 am this morning. And just to the right in the photo are the tomato plants dying. Hubs picked the last ones a few days ago and we are now trying to distribute them to as many neighbors as we can!

This little carpet rose bush is struggling to keep going up until the very last minute.


I try to keep my photos at 800 pixels wide so you can't see this very well but if you could see it at 3800 pixels you would see the frost on the roses. It looks like sugar frosting. Just beautiful to view it in the garden.
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The winner for last week's apron is

Grace

Congratulations, Sugar!!


Welcome once again to Pink Saturday. Pop over to Beverly's blog and view all the participants for today.

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This is the 6th apron giveaway. Just leaving a comment on this post will enter you to win the apron below. Simple. Easy. Do it!


~*~

Wednesday, October 26, 2011

Rooms and Random Thoughts

We've returned from a week with our granddaughter and her family. It was wonderful and very tiring for both of us, but we did bond a bit with Caroline. She's such a delight.

I woke up yesterday at 4 am and got up about 5 am, came in here and surfed a while, went back to bed at 6 and finally got up at 7 am. I hit the floor running and finally about 9 pm I sat down. It was the busiest day I've had for months.

Rooms I've thought were very pretty. Actually, they're just "fluff" to my...Random Thoughts that follow. ;-)


This sofa reminds me of one my grandmother had when I was a kid.

The lamp on the side table is what capture my attention mostly.

I LOVE this sofa!

Why can't my bedroom look this good?

Again, red/pink and yellow. My favorite color combination.


There isn't anything about this room I don't like. I love love love this room.

A gorgeous traditional bedroom.
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Random Thoughts:

I ate my way through 3 states again. I'm feeling so fat it seems as if I've been raised from birth for sacrifice.
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Hubs and I are silly sometimes when driving on a trip. Actually, I'm silly most of the time, but life is fun for me.

Anyway, while driving back from Washington I was looking at hubs' profile and mentioned to him that I'd like to see that little smirk I love so much and is sooooo sexy. It takes him a while to get that smirk right, and I tell him when he's reached that point but this time I went further. I said, "What do you know that I don't?", just as a question—because that smirk reminds me of someone who knows something I don't. He said, "Well, I know a lot about Plutonium 238." Ooookaaaay, let's go with that then. (When he was in the Marines he was in nuclear weapons and knows a lot about that sort of thing. He doesn't tell me everything as it was on a "need to know" basis and didn't consider me a "need-to-know" person and refuses to tell me things that he did 40 years ago in the military. That's fine.

Next, we saw a man and his son on horseback on a road just off the freeway here in Idaho. I said, "They must be looking for their cows." He said, "There aren't any cows in sight." I said, "I said they must be looking for them, not found them!"
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We follow the advice we get from our church leaders as diligently as we can. Several years ago we were counseled to not deface our bodies with tattoos or have more than one earring in our ears—women—and men to not wear earrings at all. We've always had counsel to not smoke or drink alcohol and I don't. When I look at what's happening in our world today I think of how wise our church leaders are in this counsel. It's our choice but wise counsel. I now see beautiful young women and men with tattoos running up and down their arms, on their faces and even grandmothers with them. I've never ever liked defacing my body and don't and even removed the earrings from my ears. I think our church leaders knew the coming rage among people and warned us to follow the example of Christ. I'm sure glad I did. Although Love Bunny has a USMC tattoo on his bicep, he tries to not let it show by wearing shirts that cover it and besides, he had it long before he joined the church. Our bodies are our temples.
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I haven't yet started on my Italian lessons as I've been so busy just with life but I'll do it probably next year. I took Spanish and French in high school and in college and have forgotten most of it, but I do speak fluent sarcasm!
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In this family the competition is pretty stiff establishing one's self as an eccentric, but I give it the my best shot to out-eccentric my daughter. Sometimes it's a losing battle. Truly! My granddaughter and I are just thrilled she rethought her decision and finally refused Judge Judy's invitation to be on her show. This is true; I kid you not! Whew.
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I think you've had enough of me for one day. Smile, I love all of ya!
~*~

Sunday, October 23, 2011

A Spiritual Melody for Sunday 10/23/2011

Another one by Yiruma. I think I'll buy his album.

Friday, October 21, 2011

Pink Saturday Apron Giveaway #5

I'm so sorry I almost forgot to post who won the apron. I schedule these posts weeks in advance sometimes and then forget to post the winner but here it is.

BJ

Congratulations, chick!

Get in touch with me, sugar, and give me your address. I'll mail it off to you on Monday.
~*~


Another Pink Saturday hosted by Beverly. Thank you, my sweet blogger friend.

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This little beauty is the 5th apron giveaway. I have to tell you that the top part of the apron's pink paisley is one of my all-time favorite prints. I love that fabric. To win you simply leave a comment and your name goes into a drawing. That's it. Just that simple.



I'm no different than any other great-grandma or grandma. I love seeing photos of Miss Caroline. This is her at dinner last night eating corn on the cob. Tonight my granddaughter and her hubby are taking us to Applebee's!!! Yippee!!!! Nothing gets in my Friday night date night, even if it does include my granddaughter and great-granddaughter.


No random thoughts this week, but just you wait until next week. ;-)
~*~

Wednesday, October 19, 2011

It's a Tough Life Babysitting

Miss Caroline is a handful, let me tell you! Hubs and I watched her yesterday and were pooped by night. LOL She can run circles around us. Let me update you on what we've been doing so far. This video was made several days ago with her mom's stepmother from California. You can play this if you wish. It's only 33 seconds long.


Just before we came my granddaughter asked if we'd like to go visit my aunt in Bremerton that I haven't seen in over 50 years. She's 94 and I figured as long as we were over near there we should go. But you must understand that we're not familiar with the Seattle area or the ferries to the islands or peninsulas across the bay. So we set it up with my aunt, who lives with her daughter, my cousin, who I haven't seen in at least 45 years. We've changed. She's old; I'm NOT! How did she age and I not age? One of those mysteries of life. ;-)

But I'm here to tell you we got lost on the way she told us to come. We had our GPS get totally confused since it didn't know that the way it wanted us to go had a road closed. We persevered...in other words, we—hubs, me, granddaughter and great granddaughter—got on the cell phone and called grandson-in-law, who was probably the only smart one among us, and asked him to get on Google maps and find out how to get to the ferry. To his wife he said, "But you're calling from an iPhone, google it!" Mandy said to him, "We've got you on the phone now and I'm not familiar enough with it to do that." My 2 computer geniuses here. Sigh. He guided us into the Edmonds-Seattle ferry and we got there just in time to miss one ferry so we waited about 45 minutes for the other. It went downhill from there.

We tried to find a place to get lunch because by this time it was 1:30 and hubs was getting a tad testy. We found a Subway near the ferry, grabbed the sandwiches and barely made it back to the queue to board the ferry. It was a pleasant crossing. But it made us about 1 1/2 hours late from when we said we'd be there. Arrived about 3:15, spent a couple of hours reminiscing of the past 45-50 years. Headed back to the ferry.

Granddaughter is still feeding her little munchkin breast milk and was pumping. We got in line for the ferry, realized we had left her computer at my cousin's house and had to get out of line while people were honking at us, drive back to the toll booth with granddaughter still pumping milk with a "drape" over her front and getting some very strange looks from the passenger cars in line because she got out to tell the toll booth lady what the problem was...well, you get the picture. We laughed ourselves silly thinking about what the other cars coming through the toll booth were thinking as we were going in the opposite direction. Hubby ran in, got the computer and raced back to the queue at the ferry. The ferry we wanted was gone by that time so we had to wait another 45 minutes. So by this time it was getting late and if we had waited until we got back to granddaughter's house we would have been eating about 9:30 pm. So we went to another Subway and got sandwiches again. We made it home in time to put Caroline to bed with kisses all around. I don't think I want to spend another day like that again.

Here she is making her Poppop a pot of cocoa.
~*~

Sunday, October 16, 2011

A Spiritual Melody for Sunday 10/16/2011

I'm not one to usually play music on my blog but this is absolutely stunningly beautiful. It touched my heart in a way not much can. Just click to start and listen for about 4 or 5 minutes and relax. I promise you'll enjoy it. It's Yiruma and he's the most profound songwriter I've heard in a very, very long time. I plan on putting more of him on my posts in the future. Sometimes we just need moments to relax.

Friday, October 14, 2011

Pink Saturday Apron Giveaway #4

The winner of last week's apron is:

LindaM

I've contacted her and it'll be on its way very soon.
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Today is the 4th apron giveaway of the 12 I'm giving away. I want to thank Beverly for having Pink Saturday but also her kind help to me in getting them to bloggers who will love them.

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This seems to be the most popular one. Could it be the cupcakes or the black polka dots? I don't know, but several women have emailed me saying they hope they win this particular one.

~*~

Random Thoughts:

Many, many years ago Love Bunny (hubs for the new viewers) told me 2 things that rocked my world. One is the world does not revolve around me. Now, this might sound silly or even difficult to believe, but I was shocked. I thought of course the world revolved around me. I am the center of the universe. This is not said with narcissism in mind at all. I just truly thought it. See how sheltered I had been up until that time.

The 2nd thing he told me what that not everyone thought as I did. Now, that was almost too much for me to register in my brain. Right is right, right? Well, it took me a long while to get my feeble brain wrapped around that. I finally came to realize as I got out into the world that he was correct in his assessment. As I look at the world today, it sure makes sense now. But back then I really thought everyone thought as I did. See how far I've come in the 50 years I've been married to a very wise man. I'm a great deal wiser now, trust me on this one.
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"That's all there is" is usually an excuse for bad behavior. Some people do not believe there is a reason we are here on this earth so they tend to live morally corrupt lives believing there isn't a price to pay sometime down the line. I'm here to tell you "YES, there is." There is a life after this one, and I intend to live as moral and honest as I possibly can. I know there is life eternal. I'm far, far from perfect but I'm striving the best I can. Some people are gifted liars who seem to have never been saddled with a cumbersome moral compass.
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I'm a tad sick of the government telling me what foods to eat and trying to limit salt and/or sugar. I can do that perfectly well without their help. We have free agency to eat what we please. And this just might include a Big Mac once or twice a year when the mood strikes me.
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Recently, I saw a "How Rich Are You" on a news site advertisement and if you entered your income it would tell you where you ranked in the world wealth. I passed on that one because I didn't want to embarrass myself.
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Every man is a quotation from all his ancestors. I hope mine are proud of me. I truly falter sometimes. ;-)
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Views overheard in the nursery are always harder to dislodge than those taught in the classroom. Teach your children well, my friends. Don't let others teach them their principles; teach them yours.
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Until next time, blogger chicks.
~*~

Friday, October 7, 2011

Pink Saturday Apron Giveaway #3

I drew the winner of the 2nd apron giveaway this past week and have notified the winner who is

Martie

Remember that some women emailed me that they wanted to enter and didn't have a blog so you won't see Martie's name on the list. There were 3 or 4 women who did this. How they knew was a mystery to me since it IS a blog. Maybe they just read blogs. But I'm appreciative no matter how they found me.
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Today is the 3rd apron giveaway. I want to thank Beverly again for hosting Pink Saturday. Actually, PS is my favorite thing to post. Maybe that's because I love Saturdays, but I also love, adore and relish PINK! However, my favorite day of the week is Monday. I don't know why but it just is.


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Nothing need be said about the apron, but I will say it has a piece of a vintage dresser scarf as its pocket. Simply posting your comment here enters you into the drawing. That's it. Nothing could be simpler, just to comment on the post giving away that particular apron.

~*~

Tuesday, October 4, 2011

Another Tote Bag

First, here's a photo from my granddaughter's hubby's cell phone of our great granddaughter, Miss Caroline, 16 months old, taking her swimming lessons. When they were here visiting us and she was put on a playground swing, I noticed she had no fear—the higher they pushed her the more she laughed and liked it. So I suggested they give her swimming lessons just in case. After seeing her in a small child's pool in her backyard, they agreed. She is now loving the lessons and will put her face underwater. Ooooh, and the binky? Love Bunny says it's her flotation device. Her mummy said she loves that binky!

I decided to do another bag with a bit more room in it. This is what I've been working on for a few days. Remember, there is no pattern so I'm making it up as I go along. Not quite finished in this photo.

The back of it. Still have a scrap of that vintage pillowcase lace if I want to do another one.

Here it is finished. If I give this one away, the flower stays with me! LOL

I made this little ribbon rose many, many years ago when just learning how to do them well. This is one of only a few that are my favorites. I doubt I'll ever part with them since it was my first try. I've gotten a bit better though. I love crafting these flowers.
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Thoughtful People

I have no clue why this published early. I wanted it to post on 10/4/11! Sigh...

I have the most delightful neighbors. He teaches high school and she's a psychotherapist and they have 2 little girls: Ella, 6, and Hadley, 4. Hadley had open heart surgery as an infant and really gets around just fine now as a very energetic 4 yr. old. They're both little pistols, trust me. They know to vacate the sidewalk and driveway when they hear the garage door go up and always asks hubs if they can see his trains. A few days ago they came over with their bouquet of flowers for hubby and me. Quite a cute little twosome if I do say so. Ella once proceeded to give me all of their passwords for the garage and computer. LOL I looked at her dad; he looked at me and shrugged and then proceeded to reprimand her. I think she's going to be elected the next Homeowners Association President of our subdivision! She cannot keep a secret! Cute. This is the bouquet.


Then later in the day our friends from down the street and their 2 kids brought by a bouquet for watching the younger two while they were going through a crisis earlier in the week. How thoughtful some people are!

~*~