Winter's yard

The river is up.  It happens every winter when there are big rains north and east of us.  You can't tell where the trees end and water begins in this picture.  I like that.  

A mossy moon.

The clover is already threatening its takeover of our yard.  We are expecting freezing temperatures a few nights this week so there is a slight chance that we will spray some RoundUp on the yard within the week.  A  very small, slight chance.  

We always threaten.  We rarely spray.

Daryl and my nephew, Mitch, are working today to restock the woodpile.  I do love a fire in the fireplace and I'm grateful that he will spend his day off from his regular job to work so hard.  A man who worked with Daryl used to say that firewood warms you twice.  Once when you cut and split it, the second time when you burn it.  

I'm regularly amazed at how much work it takes to keep our little 10 acres going and I sometimes think about how different our lives would be if we owned a loft apartment in the city.  Since we live here, though, and since I love it so much, I do take satisfaction in the reward of hard work.  I also have learned to let go of any idea I ever had of perfection or of turning our land into some sort of beautiful garden.  My goal is to keep the space directly connected to the house looking somewhat manicured.  For the rest, I will do what I want to do, and what I can do.  After all, there are no landscape or yard care police roaming out here :)

At least I hope not.

Here comes the sun...

Oh, sun, I am so glad to see you!

I do love cloudy, rainy, dreary days.  We have had many of them lately.  And, if the skies are gray again tomorrow, I will be happy.

But, for today, I am thankful for the sun's rays as they break out across the field.

First Fire

One of the best things about our house is the big fireplace.

And one of the best days of the year is our first fire of the season.

Cozy, warm, crackling happiness.

My boys of summer

Summer

boys

sprinkler

horse swing

shirts off

sunshine

popsicles

laughter

cousins

Summer

Philly's Terrain

After my fun weekend in Philadelphia with Jackie and Corey, I have been having fun at home catching up on the yard work.  When I am home it seems like grass and weeds grow at a reasonable pace.  But, let me leave town and there is some sort of growing fever that attacks my little farm in the country.  The place almost looked abandoned when I got back.

I've got most of it all whipped back into shape, though, and even got a little extra work done.  I had to get ahead because....I'm leaving town again tomorrow.  Gotta love it!

Today I sprayed weed killer around some walnut trees, in the garden, and down the middle of our gravel road.  I cut back some rose bushes and lantana, picked up some moss and sticks, sprayed bug killer around the garage, swept down the spider webs, and knocked down the dirt dauber nests, (dirt dauber?  dirt dobber? mess maker?),  replaced the light bulbs in the garage light fixtures and cleaned out the light covers.  THEN, I did a dreaded job -- I cut back the ivy that grows up a brick wall.  I dread that job because spiders and wasps live inside the ivy.  The first thing I always do is spray bug killer all over it, then wait a little while.  I am always tempted to just cut it all down, but I really like the way the green ivy breaks up the expanse of white brick wall.  If it would just stay put and not grow so fast!

* * * * *

One reason I have so much energy for my yard is because while in Philly, Jackie and Corey took me to Terrain.  Wow!  It is an outdoor decorator's paradise!  We ate lunch in a greenhouse there and then wandered around, just taking in all of the beauty.  Terrain is owned by the same company as Anthropologie.  If you love one, you will love the other.

Don't I look like I love this place?

The gift shop.

The plants.

The people :)

Jackie and I were talking about how to decorate in a way that would feel like Terrain.  I think the key is to have a cabin in the woods, add some twinkle lights, then spend a million dollars making the place look casual and rustic.

No problem with the woods and the twinkle lights.  Well, it's a start!

Scents of grandparents past

Two times in the last two days I have had memories of my grandparents wash over me while I worked in the yard.  Both times the memories were brought up by smells and both times I had a warm, loved feeling inside.

Yesterday, while I was using a pitchfork to get some hay for the chicken pen, I remembered Grandmother and Granddaddy Atkinson's hay barn.  As I pulled layers of hay from a round bale, the smell of that hay knocked me back in time.  All the way back to the mid-70's when my sisters, my cousins and I would play hide-n-seek in a barn stacked tall with square hay bales.

Today I cut the grass around a fig tree and remembered the one in Mama and Papa Skaggs' back yard.  My memory isn't so much of the figs, but of the back yard.  Always well-manicured, with a small garden and a work shed full of tools.

I wonder what smells will remind our grandchildren of us.  Maybe it will be...

Bubble bath

Chicken scratch feed

Fresh cut grass

Chicken nuggets

Chocolate Oatmeal cookies

Smoke from a fireplace

Movie popcorn

Lotion

Cabbage Patch doll heads

Pine woods while on a walk

Homemade pizza fresh from the oven

I don't know what it will be, but when a smell makes them time travel back to me, I hope they know it is the smell of love.

Comfort for a Tuesday morning

On this dreary Tuesday morning I am in need of a little comfort.  I have orange peels and cinnamon sticks simmering on the stove, a candle lit, gentle music playing in the background.

I want the comforting in small part because I have a cold.

In large part because a good friend died suddenly and too soon.  I'm sad for his wife and I'm sad for his children and grandchildren.  And I'm sad for all of us who will miss his ready smile, big laugh, and wise counsel.  We all know that life is fleeting, that it can be taken away in the blink of an eye, and yet, when we are smacked with that fact, we are in shock.

Many of us will spend today in our kitchens, doing what we can do.  We'll pray for Nita while we stir the casserole.  We will plan to live as if this is our last day while we bake a cake.  On this Valentine's Day we will try to put our love in action.

Then we will leave our homes, bring our food, and gather with each other to remember.  We will give a hug to a grieving family. We will hug each other.  A little more aware of how important we are to each other.

Movie week

This week started out with a first for me:  I went to see a movie at the theater two days in a row.  Exciting, huh?  Yesterday Lily came with me to see Beauty and the Beast.  I am always a little surprised at how scary a Disney movie can be when I see it through the eyes of a 4 year old..  Beauty is rated 'G', but Lily sat with my hand over her eyes for a little bit.  She said, "Just move your hand when the bad part is over."  

Today, Jonathan saw Chipwrecked with me.  He liked The Chipmunks, but his favorite part of a movie is the popcorn and Sprite.

And, as if I had not been watching enough shows, I came home this evening and watched a DVR'd episode of Downton Abbey.  If you aren't watching that show, YOU MUST!  Rent the first season on Netflix, then  watch the ones playing on Masterpiece Theater on PBS on Sunday nights.  

Watching Downton Abbey makes me think I should drink more hot tea.  And dress up more when I am home.   And have servants to cook and clean house.  And speak with a British accent.

Happy, rainy day

We woke up yesterday morning to see lightening outside our bedroom window.  I haven't been keeping up with the weather before it happens too much lately, so this was a little bit of a surprise to me.  Before long the rain started to fall.  I had a quick thought of heading off to the basement, but the worst of the storm passed us without any damage.  We did get a lot of rain, though!

We had already planned for Lily to spend the day with me.  I picked her up, we went to the grocery store and  when we got home, I told her that I'd like to get my camera to go back out and take some pictures of the mini-flood.  Her mama is a wonderful photographer so she was very willing to get back out and be my photography director.

"Drive down here.  You need a picture of the water over the road."

"Drive down the road and take a picture of how much water is around those trees."

"Minnie, that is beautiful.  Just beautiful."

 Lily has had a terrible cough and needs a little help to get over it.  She was so cute with the vapor rising around her head.  I couldn't resist this picture.

After our little photography session, we built a fire in the fireplace, toasted an English muffin, spread some butter and jelly on it, and sat down to enjoy our little snack in our cozy house.

It's a happy day on the farm.

Pink roses

I love pink roses.

These were left over from a party we had last week and I have enjoyed them so much.  They are just the right touch of soft, feminine, natural, and beautiful.

So, why not keep some in the house all of the time?  

I think I will!

Moonset

This is the moon setting around 5:30 last Saturday morning.

Is there such a thing as 'moonset'?

Toilet Wars

Today, I am so thankful that we are having carpet installed in our upstairs bedrooms.  It has been a long time coming and this is the realization of something Daryl and I have dreamed about for years.

With that said...

I see how dirty this toilet is, too.  I have known it was going to be replaced, but didn't think that I might take a picture of it.

We are also, having flooring installed in the bathrooms which includes removing the toilets for the day.  When we knew we would have to do that, we decided to buy a new toilet to replace the 40-year-old blue toilet in the guest bathroom.  


Daryl has a problem with laws about things like toilet tank size and he really doesn't like it that we are getting rid of a working 5-gallon tank toilet.

This was our conversation as we moved the 40-year-old blue toilet outside:

Daryl:  I'm not throwing this away until I am satisfied that a new one flushes right.

Me:  But this one isn't coming back in the house.

Daryl:  I'm not throwing this one away.

Me:  But this one isn't coming back in the house.

Daryl:  Well, all I know is that I'm not throwing this one away.

Me:  I guess you can use it outside, then.

Daryl:  I'm going to do an experiment.  I'm going to connect the tank to the downstairs toilet.  If it flushes better, I will replace the old tank with this one.

Me:  You think we are going to have a blue tank on that toilet downstairs?

Daryl:  No, I will take it somewhere and have it painted white.

Me:  The rest of the world is getting by with smaller tanks.  We can too.

Daryl:  I'm not throwing this one away.

I may need some help with this one.

First fire fail

Today it was about 45 degrees here and drizzly.  I was sitting on the couch working on a Christmas present that needs to get finished when I decided that today was the day for First Fire.

Usually the first fire of the season in our fireplace includes Daryl, but I made the selfish decision to start one while I was home alone.  I deserved it, after all.  It was cold and wet outside and I had several hours of smocking to get done.

So I wadded up some old newspaper, put the newspaper under my stack of wood, struck a match, lit the paper....

And watched the house fill with smoke.  

There was one major detail that I forgot about -- we haven't taken the top off of the chimney.  It isn't something I can do by myself because it is terribly dangerous and I leave all of those dangerous things to Daryl.  First you get a ladder to get on the roof, then you get a ladder to get on a higher roof, then you take a heavy lid from the top of the chimney.  Obviously not something I could do quick enough to save myself from the smoke.

Oh, well.  

I opened the back door and the kitchen window to air out the house, got the house good and chilly and turned up the heater.

First fire has been postponed!

The Barbie wall

When I was in Oklahoma earlier this year we visited an art museum.  After looking through their beautiful exhibit of Bibles, we looked through the gift shop.  Instead of buying some sort of momento of the Bible exhibit, I bought a Barbie calendar.  That probably says something amount my maturity level.

This was no ordinary calendar, though.  It was very large, 14x18, and printed on heavy card stock.  Each month has a different drawing of Barbie in an evening gown.  When I saw the calendar, I knew it had to come home with me and go on the wall in my newly repainted pink guest room.

Thanks to Hobby Lobby having their frames half price this week I got 12 simple black frames and Daryl and I put them on the wall this morning.

It is as beautiful as I thought it would be.  My pictures aren't too great, but the wall itself looks lovely!

Clotheslined

I have a new clothesline!  Something so simple, yet so perfect for me.  I like the smell of sheets fresh from the line, I like their crisp feel.  I like the energy conservation of saving that one dryer-load.  I like that I can see the breeze by watching the clothes sway.

It would be difficult for me to name one inanimate object that gives me as much joy as a clothesline.

Many years ago, when we had children in diapers, we chose not to buy a dryer.  The decision was a financial one:  save money by not purchasing the dryer and save money by not using the electricity to run it.  Almost every day I had a line full of diapers, drying in the sun.  Sometimes being softened by a rain shower.  Sometimes freezing before they dried.  Many days our clothes smelled like we had just returned from a camp fire because of the smoke from our chimney.  Some days, unfortunately, cows would linger along the fence row beside the clothesline and we would smell like cattle ranchers.  Mostly, though, the clothes were just fresh, and crisp, and smelled like sunshine.

My life became a little easier when we gave up our pioneer ways and bought a dryer.  Today when I hang sheets outside, it isn't a financial decision.  It might have a little to do with 'saving the planet' :), but mostly I hang the sheets outside because of one thing:

It makes me happy.

I've been a little busy....

I'm sure you have been asking, "What's new, Cindy?"  Well, here I am to fill you in!

Don't get too excited.

I have done a little sewing.  I love the sewing space I have carved out of our dining room.  This room was once two rooms, a dining room and a living room.  Years ago before we lived here, JoJo had the wall taken down and it is such a wonderful space now.  There are windows on each end and this is the brightest room in the house.  Then, a couple of years ago, I decided that it seemed like a shame to only use the room when we needed the dining table.  At the time I wondered if I would mind the sewing clutter, but I don't at all.  I try to keep it as neat as possible and the colors of the yarn and fabric give me a little burst of happy when I glance them.

This room has been red for many years now.  I'm considering a change.  Just wanted to warn anyone out there who thinks that the room should be forever red.  I am still taking input from all sources, though. :)

And speaking of the dining room, I refinished the top of our dining table.  I'll post more about that when I get the buffet finished.

Last Saturday night I was just minding my own business when Abbie asked me if I wanted to do a boot camp with her and one of her friends.  Without even doing much soul-searching, I said that I would.  Crazy, I know!  Over the past year or so I have worked to get my cholesterol number down below 200 and exercise seems to be the best way to do it.  That doesn't really explain why I would jump off into the deep end of the exercise world, though.  The only thing I can  figure out is that when she told me that it would be from 5:30-6:30 in the morning, I thought that sounded good.  Something like, "Get it over early.  Then move on with your day."  I'm pretty sore, but, you know, it feels good.  Until I get up or need to cough.

The strangest thing about this is that I don't think I have any abdominal muscles.  You may be thinking that I couldn't walk if I didn't have some.  So, I'm a freak of nature!  I must use all back muscles to support myself.  If all I do over the next 5 weeks is get some abs, I will feel successful!

I'm still picking up walnuts.  Anyone else want some fun like this?  Come on over!

The thing that has taken more brain power than anything else I have done recently is that I'm helping to put together a slide show for Daryl's parents.

When we first came up with the idea, I volunteered to do it because I have a computer program that we could use.  Then, we started thinking that some music would be nice.  And then, we needed narration.  At that point, I had no idea what I was doing and have had a blast learning some new computer programs.  The questions that I had didn't seem to be addressed in the Help section of the program so Google has become my friend.  David suggested that I type my question into the search bar as if I was asking him.  That worked great.  Just last night I figured out how to really work the sound portion of the program.  At one point I didn't think I would be able to pull it all together, but now I am feeling pretty good about it.  Last night at church I asked our sound guy if he had used Adobe Premiere Elements before and he said that he is very familiar with it.

Next time I will use the phone-a-friend lifeline.

Which is exactly what I did when I decided to do boot camp.  I texted Cheryl.  Thanks, sis, for hurting with me!

Yesterday

This is what I did over the weekend:

Cooked some new recipes.

Worked in the yard.

Helped a daddy teach some little ones how to work a little and how to help a little.

Taught a little boy that if you roll down the window while you are riding in the car and put your arm outside, you can make your hand fly in the wind.

Learned how to do something new.

And then I sat outside Saturday evening to see the sun set.

To do this last thing, I got everything I needed.  A house phone in case the phone rings so I don't have to get up to go answer it.  A cell phone in case someone calls me on the cell.  My latest sewing project.  My camera.  The Nook so I can listen to the Vitamin String Quartet station on Pandora.

 Then I noticed how pretty the reflection of the tree was in the Nook.  So I took another picture of the Nook.

It was truly a Heavenly Day

The Three Lives of a Kitchen Table

Before Daryl and I got married all those years ago we went furniture shopping at TG&Y.  Which is the equivalent today of buying furniture at Target.  The first thing we bought was an oak table to go in our kitchen dining area.  We stained it, polyurethaned it, and used it that way for about 13 years.  The table is in so many pictures taken during those years.  Pictures of aunts sewing curtains before Ben was born, David's third birthday when Jackie was 10 days old and all I could do was put a candle in a piece of cake someone had brought to the house, a great pic of David with a face full of chicken pox.  It even held the wedding cake at Jackie's first wedding on her third birthday.  BUT, all of those pictures were taken before the digital age and I don't have a scanner...

When we moved to Florida our kitchen was all white and not as large as the one we had in Montgomery.  The oak table took up so much visual space that the room felt very cramped.  So, Daryl painted the table white.  Several people told us what a bad decision we made, but it wasn't their kitchen  or their table, for that matter!  I wanted it white!

A white kitchen table never worked at our house here, though.  I was over my white phase.  What to do, though?  Daryl had worked so hard on that paint job and I felt a little inconsiderate to think about changing it to something else.  So the table went to the basement.  And that didn't feel considerate to the table!  After two years I decided that it was time to make a decision and get the table back in service.

My first idea was to  paint the whole thing black.  I have a friend with a black table in her kitchen and I love the way it looks.  But, David and Sarah just refinished a side table at their house by stripping the paint off the top and painting the legs.  Even though I have never stripped furniture before I decided to go for it and get to work.

When I first got down to the old oak finish, I actually talked to a table.  "Hello, old friend."  And it talked back.  "Ahhhhhh.  Now I can breath again."

Not really.  The table didn't respond to me.

Here it is today.

I love how it turned out!

If you look to the right of the kitchen table you can see my dining table.  I'm on to the next refinishing project!

Misty morning

We drove home yesterday in beautiful weather!  For most of the day we were under perfectly sunny skies and very comfortable temperatures.  Somewhere in Mississippi we got into the first rain bands from the remnants of Tropical Storm Lee.  The wind was a little gusty, but we were not in hard rain.  Which is good, because I really don't like driving, or riding, in heavy downpours.  It makes me want to pull over and wait it out.  When you have been in the car for 13 hours the idea of sitting on the side of the road so close to home is not so good!

In an amazing show of self-control, I made it the whole way home without drinking a Coke, eating any fries, or eating even one of the cookies that were in the back of the truck!

When we have windy weather here at home, our beautiful moss in the trees becomes ugly moss on the ground.  Keeping it picked up is a big job all winter long.  To Shiloh, it just looks like a comfortable place to rest.

I took these pictures from inside the house today and I am sure Shiloh didn't see me.  Because she would NEVER want me to know that she snuggles with cats!

I knew it!

World's tackiest bird feeder

I have not had very good luck with bird feeders this year.  And I wanted to very badly!  First, the only one I had bit the dust.  Then, the next two I got were duds.  Who ever heard of bird feeders that birds won't eat out of?

My parents have two great bird feeders.  One of them is a flat feeder and the other is a regular feeder.  Regular, except that it has batteries in it to shock the squirrels who try to steal some seeds.  That's just the way they feel about squirrels in Oklahoma.

So, I called Mom to see if many birds were eating at their feeder.  She said that it really wasn't the time of year to feed birds since there is so much food other places right now.  That made me feel better, but I have had almost -0- birds!

Without spending any money, a flat feeder seemed like the way to go.

And I set out to make the World's Tackiest Bird Feeder.

I think I was very successful!