Miracle in the sky

 

       "When I consider thy heavens, the work of thy fingers, the moon and the stars, which thou has ordained; What is man, that thou art mindful of him?"  Psalm 8:3-4.

          The moon was glorious a couple of nights ago.  My husband and I sat out on our front porch and took several pictures from several angles.  It seemed the man in the moon was posing for us.

            It was a beautiful sight.  Sometimes I think we take the moon for granted.  Next time it's full, go out and look up and see the amazing light God has placed in our sky.

Why I've already changed my blog name

   I have only posted a few blogs under "I love my dogs," and noticed I haven't written one thing about my two sweet labs, Belle and Bonnie.    I decided to change the blog's name to something that is a loving memory for me.  So from now on my blog will be called "Snicklefritz."  I will, at some time, post about my babies.  Bye again.

Recorating again

      See this painting?  I bought it the other day at an antique shop.  I am going to decorate a whole room around it.  Let's start from the beginning.............  Oh, and please forgive the bright white flash in the center of the painting. I told you I was not a photographer.

     Thirty-four years ago my husband and I packed up and with our three children left a place I had known my whole life and moved to a town where we knew no one and had no family around.  I was use to always having family close by.  Needless to say at the time I was not a happy camper.  I cried the first week we were in our new, old house.  We bought an old house because that was what we wanted and we wanted a fixer upper.  Well, this house whas built in 1913 and had the original bathroom that was put in in the fifties.  It had a thirty year old furnace, cracked walls, the ugliest blue paneling on the upstairs hallway, with bright blue paint on the woodwork.  

      With three children to clothe and feed we didn't have a whole lot of money back then to pay to have any work done so we did it all ourselves. We painted, stripped woodwork, put in new carpet one room at a time and eventually got the house looking almost good.
        The years went swiftly by and one by one the children left home and we kept on working on this old house.  Two years ago I finally got a whole new kitchen.  Before I had one little countertop and cabinets above the sink to store dishes.  Now I have all the room I need to do all the baking that I love to do. 
         One by one each room was decorated, carpeting removed and wood floors refinished and new ones put in and now we have started doing the rooms all over again.  My tastes have changed so much in thirty-four years.  I use to like the primitive look with dark colors and homespun.  Now I am into pastels and have painted all but two rooms in the last three years.

           Then I bought this painting and I am going to do our family room in a chabby chic decor using the colors in the painting.  Right now the room has a red, white and blue theme with American flags all over, very patriotic.  Since I spend most of my time in the winter in this room working on my quilt and sewing projects, I decided to make it a room I would love to be in.  Something bright and cheerful and kind of girly.  Since my husband has the livingroom with the big screen tv and his comfortable lounge chair, I don't think he will mind if I have this room for myself.
       

        Steering clear off the subject, this is the little wooden bowl, scoop and acorns I bought the other day.  It's in my husband's room where all the nuts are kept. Ha! I know you will read this, David.



         By the way this is an angel food cake I baked yesterday.  It's been iced and two pieces have been eaten since then.

           So that is why I showed you the painting.  I should have been an interior decorator because I love transforming a room.  Bye for now.

Buying white muslim

           I love white muslim.  It gets softer the more it's washed and makes a quilt feel soft and cozy.  I was saying to myself the other day within hearing of my husband, who shall not be named, that I needed some more white material to finish a quilt I was making

           There is a perfectly good fabric store, JoAnn's, here in our town, but my husband said, "Why don't we make a day of it?  We'll go antiquing, eat out and you can get your fabric."  Well, I'm not too hard to persuade when it comes to a day away.  Considering we got back from Alaska two whole weeks ago, my wanderlust had set in and I was ready to go anywhere.

             We left early and drove down the interstate, which we both hate, to Salem.  Salem is a little town in southern Indiana that has small town written all over it.  It has a quaint downtown with an antique store, some restaurants and a wonderful craft store that also sells good quality quilt fabric.  I love, love,  love to go there.  I always get inspired when I walk its aisles.   Well, anyway, I was looking for white muslim and all they had was the extra wide 108" bolts so I bought a couple of yards.  Then I started to look around.  That was my downfall.  I suddenly found in my hands fat quarters and was longingly fingering other fabric. 

              Since I had bought so much fabric on our trip to Alaska, I didn't feel I should be buying much more until I knew what I was going to do with what I had.  So I went down an aisle that had dish towels to embroider or applique and I was off!  Soon I had three dish towels and a whole handful of embroidery floss.  Next I chose a pattern of a pumpkin to embroider on them.  Next I looked at some wonderful puzzles that had quilts on them and my husband asked me, "Do you want one of them?  Well, halleluhah, yes!  So that was added to my pile.  Then I saw something I had read about on some quilting blogs called Best Press, a clear starch alternative called linen fresh because I love the smell of freshly laundered and pressed linen.

             I thought it was probably time to get the heck out of the store before I found something else so I made my purchase and we headed out of town.  But, what do you know, my husband took me around the corner to a cute little shop in an old house that we had visited once before.  It has all kinds of home decorating things and sells the best smelling candles.  The whole store smells heavenly.  I found a little wooden bowl and wooden scoop and bought a bag of the cutest fake acorns to pour in the bowl.  I felt like it was Christmas and my birthday all rolled into one. 

            Well, to make a long story short, or a short story long, whatever, I ended up with a whole lot more than white muslim, plus I had a wonderful day with my husband.  He is the sweetest, most generous, loving husband in the world.  He made this such a wonderful day.  I asked him what did I do to deserve this? 

               Here are a few pictures of the things I bought today.  Please excuse the pictures.  I am not a professional photographer nor do I play one on television.  Maybe one day I will learn how to take a really good picture, but until then, this is what we all will have to put up with. 

              Hope you all get to have a wonderful day once in a while like I did today.  Bye.

Cool weather at last

  I use to be a summer girl, but the older I get, the more I like the cooler temps.  I come alive when the weather gets cooler and I have so much energy.   Fall is the time of year I am outside walking, gardening, and playing with the dogs.  Summers I am like my dogs who stay under our cool deck all day.  I want to stay inside out of the sun in the cool.  There was a time I use to lay by the pool and bake for hours.  Can't help thinking how bad that was for my skin, but I loved the heat on my body and being extremely tan every year.  Now I bearly get a touch of tan and that is only because I have to get out and mow our yard and do the gardening. 
  So today I was out planting some new echinacea plants I got in the mail last week.  I had forgotten I had ordered them and evidently they were on backorder all summer because I had placed my order with this particular company last spring.  I also divided some salvia and hibiscus and replanted those also.  I am constantly rearranging plants and moving them to different places in the garden.  I call my backyard the dogs' garden because that is where they live and do their own particular brand of gardening, digging up moles and rooting up holes all over.  In spite of that, the flowers are beautiful there and I consider the dogs' work just part of the landscape. 
  The front yard is my work of art.  I took a once rather scraggily green lawn and have transformed it into a garden full of daffodils, hydrangeas, weeping cherry, weeping pussy willow, lilies, zinnias, hostas, salvia, lamb's ear, a rose arbor and many other flowers.  I have a giant pink flamingo made of iron standing by my front porch. I know, it sounds tacky, but it's really hardly noticeable unless I point it out.  Various other yard decorations are arranged around the garden paths.  This garden is also in a constant state of change as I remove plants that aren't doing well or are not as colorful as I wanted. 
  Now I am thinking of making some crusty bread and trying to make bruschetta.  Remember that scene in "Julie and Julia" where Julie is frying bread and making brushetta?  It looked so good to me I decided that one day I would try it so today is the day.  My husband will love the bread, I'm sure, but the bruschetta, not so much.  He's not much of a vegetable kind of guy.  Meat and potatoes all the way with my man.  I will put some kind of meat and cheese on the bread for him.