WILD ABOUT MOTHER NATURE

Wild About Mother Nature is a new weekly party at Grits and Glamour that I'm crazy about.  I love nature, and it's such fun to participate in a weekly party dedicated to it!  This week the moss is really looking lovely, so I thought I'd let it star in my post. I like to use it in the winter on my deck.  It's so pretty and green.

 This year I also planted grass seed in a little blue pot. It's been fun trimming it.  I love the difference in the two greens.  

I've planted grass seed in this large dish to use on my Easter table. It got some nice light rain and I expect to see the seed germinate soon.

I have a nice pot ready to be filled with soil and hopefully a lovely spring plant.

I hope you'll hop over to Grits and Glamour and take a look at the participants of Wild About Mother Nature!  Thanks for stopping by.  

JOURNALING IS ALSO MY THING

All my life I've been a journaler.  I kept a "diary" in grade school.  I continued off and on in high school.  In my young adult life I wrote, and wrote and wrote.  What in the world I wrote about, I don't know...probably boys.  Who I was in love with from week to week (I must confess that I was pretty fickle).  I never wrote about bad things.  I still don't.  When my mother died I didn't even mention it for days.  When my father had a serious heart attack I didn't write about it at all. My journals are filled with the mundane of  day to day life.  But I love them, I love the entries about what the kids are doing and what we had for dinner.

I have several different journals.  For the last ten years I've been keeping a black and white journal daily.  I've filled about 15 sketch books with doodles and words of our every day life. . Here are a few pages....

Then I have what I call my colored journal.  In it I have painted the pages and included pictures from magazines, or other pretty things that caught my eye.  I use a 7 x 7 artist sketch book.  This journal is much more of an artistic endeavor, and is rather time consuming.  Since I went back to work full time I've pretty much given up the colored journal, which is a shame because I really loved working in it.

 It's hard to photograph them, but if you're interested you can see some of my pages here:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/50087102@N00/sets/943818/

I also keep a Thanksgiving/Christmas journal AND a gardening journal.  Both of these are informational only, no pictures.  But I'm thinking I could interest them up a bit by adding some ornamental details.

So what about you?  Are you a paper journaler? Were you before you found the blogging world?

Thanks for stopping by, I hope you're having a great Friday!

OUTDOOR WEDNESDAY

I got this idea from Posy Gets Cozy.  Hers is a lot prettier than mine...she has awesome photography skills and an eye for detail.  Just a few things that seem to be saying, "Spring is near!".  

Hope you're having a great Wednesday.  I'm participating in Outdoor Wednesday at A Southern Daydreamer.  Thanks for stopping by!

MOSAIC MONDAY IN THE GARDEN

How was your weekend?  It was rainy and cool here, but I'm not complaining.  I love the rain, especially this time of year when the garden is coming to life.  How exciting!  Today the sky has cleared and a pretty blue sky and warm sun is drawing me out.  I took a little trip around the garden and found a few things blooming...

I don't know why I don't have more daffodils.  I think I should have moved many of them because they were being overgrown by monkey grass and tree roots.  I'll have fun planting more this fall though!

There are also many plants putting on new growth. I LOVE the leaves of columbine, especially after a rain when it holds silvery water droplets.

Another plant whose leaves are lovely is sedum, it also sparkles with droplets held on it's leaves...

This little blue evergreen has survived the winter and looks healthy. I can't wait to plant around it.

Lillies!!! I'm not sure what they are, I don't even remember planting them! Be still my heart!!!

Foxglove looking fabulous!

 Now I know the next picture doesn't look like much, but here's the thing...I only had ONE survive as of fall. Now there are 3 new ones (can you feel my excitement?)!

Now I mustn't forget it's Mosaic Monday so here are a few to enjoy...

I hope to spend some time in the garden today, pulling a few weeds.  I hope you have a wonderful Monday.  I am joining The Little Red House for Mosaic Monday. Thanks for stopping by!

AQUARIUM UPDATE

I am happy to report that the battle of the Saltwater Aquarium at work is being won by me and my equally obsessed SW reef enthusiast friend, Janet.  We are both working hard at making it beautiful.  I think we have come such a long way since we first started reading and learning about what it takes to maintain the aquarium.  In case you've forgotten, here is a picture of it in the beginning.

  Believe it or not, we were pretty happy with it. We just didn't know how pretty it could get.  After countless hours of research (every night I would come home and read anything I could find online.  I joined a Saltwater Tank discussion site where I could ask questions and get answers by very knowledgeable people), and lots of Janet's hard earned moola, here is how it looks today...

 Center, a mushroom that was teeny tiny and has grown by leaps and bounds! The yellowish thing next to it we believe is a sponge that piggybacked into the aquarium.  We're not really sure what to do with it. Also you can see one of the clown fish - we have two.

In the lower center, a very pretty mushroom (it has a light blue mouth, can you see it?) 

Far left, Shaving Brush, center Blue Ricordea, right Green Flower Anemone. I love the Ricordea and hope we can get other colors to form a pretty colony. 

My very favorite resident of the aquarium, our Watchman Pink Spotted Gobi.  And watch he does! He sits on his little fins, propped on the rock and watches!  He is so adorable.

  We have worked very hard to get the aquarium to this point.  The fish and corals are not cheap and we have lost several due to high salinity. We are finally getting the salinity down to acceptable levels so will hopefully be shopping soon!  I really love the soft corals like the mushrooms and anemones.  Janet would like to get an anemone to host the Clown Fish.  They are kind of expensive, so we want to be sure our water parameters are really good.  But won't that be fun!! It's so cute to see the Clown Fish playing in the anemone. Funny how they don't sting the Clowns.  Thanks for stopping by. I hope you are having a wonderful Sunday.  I am excited about having a week off from work for Winter Break.

HAPPY VALENTINES DAY

My wonderful husband surprised me this morning with some lovely jewelry and a Canoli (Yum!). Tonight he's grilling filet mignon.  What a lucky girl I am!  I am blessed to be married (almost 27 years!) to someone so thoughtful and kindhearted.  I hope to set a pretty table, maybe this one below.  Although this is set for four and tonight it will only be the two of us.  This was a test table for last year, but due to circumstances beyond our control, we never got to enjoy it.  

I got these red salad plates at KMart last year, I think they are fantastic.  I love the detail.  

Isn't it wonderful that Nandina's look great this time of year, just perfect for our Valentine dinners!

I hope you have a fun evening planned with someone special.  Thanks for stopping by!

Happy Sunday to you, how have you spent your weekend?  It turned cold here (boo, hiss!). I was in hopes of  winter being done. Oh well, looks like we are in for a few cold days, then we'll be back to our Spring-like temperatures.  I have one week of work, then I'll be off for Winter Break - can't wait!  I plan to spend Winter Break relaxing and stitching.  I'm trying to get my 9 block crazy quilt wall hanging done.  I need to bead and button one block and then make just one more.  I'm so excited to be almost done! For my next project  I'm thinking of making something with 4 inch blocks. 

I was taking a little walk around the yard the other day and I noticed the sun shining on the trees way in the back.  It was so pretty, that I ran and got the camera to capture the moment.

Looks like fall, doesn't it?  But it's just the way the light was hitting the pines.  The trees were glowing. I hope you're having a lovely Sunday.  I am finally feeling better and hope to be making the rounds this week. Thanks for stopping by!

 

FLASHBACK FRIDAY

There are certain things that are committed to my memory, no photos to capture a moment.  I'm sure you have that inner eye memory that Wordsworth spoke of.  For me, I remember the Fair.  It was a big deal when I was a kid.  We got out of school half a day! They also gave us some free tickets, for about 10 rides I think.  I don't actually have a lot of memories of being at the fair, but for some reason I can "see" the length of paper tickets.  And I remember the blue hat with a big feather and my name in glitter, oh what a treasure! Long after our fairgrounds shut down, the big roller coaster still stood.  It was demolished in the movie Smokey and the Bandit.  Here is a picture of the roller coaster in the movie.  I rode this very same coaster time and time again in my youth.

I remember getting red pencils twice a year from Coca Cola!  We didn't have the cool and interesting pencils that the kids have now days.  Just plain old No. 2 yellow pencils.  So the red ones we got from Coke were such a treat!

Blue denim-like notebooks.  We used to get creative with our pens on our notebooks.  Speaking of pens, I remember when we had to write with a fountain pen.  Ball Points were a few years away.  Fountain pens were such fun! Now they seem so romantic!

Clothes are a big memory...Little plaid skirts with a sweater - they were Trouser style skirts with side pockets and a fly front.  Also pleated plaid skirts with colored knee socks and saddle oxfords.  I didn't get to start wearing pants to school until 11th grade.  My mom sewed.  I didn't have an original "Villager" dress, but my mom made me one.  It was burnt orange and had teeny tiny pleats down the front.  So cute.  I can't find a picture of one, but here is a little summer jumper mom made for me. I still remember the summer we went to our favorite place camping and I had two of these to wear.

Do you enjoy remembering these kinds of things?  I know this is a mishmash of memories...just kind of how my mind is working tonight. Happy Friday to you.

Outdoor Wednesday

I've been a little under the weather lately and haven't been around blogland much.  I hope to be feeling better soon and able to get back to posting and enjoying your posts.  I've had the delightful honor of being chosen by Hollygarden for the Versatile Blogger award and will be happily passing it along soon.  In the mean time, I'd like to share some visitors I had recently.  

Thanks for stopping by, I hope to be up and "at um" soon!

I'm participating in Outdoor Wednesday and Wild About Mother Nature