BEAUTIFUL

Mild, misty, foggy....ahhhh!  I love mornings like this. It's like a little gift. And for my last day before I return to work! Nothing much on tap for today. Church, then home.  A great ending to a some what nice week off. Thanks so much for stopping by, I hope you have a great Sunday.

SICK BUT STITCHING

Hello!  How has your day been? It's lovely here today. Nice and warm.  Unfortunately, I'm stuck inside with a bit of sickness. Luckily I have my big stitching project to keep me company. cough, cough, cough, stitch, stitch, stitch...I am enjoying this stitching project, but I'm not sure how I'll feel about it as the days and weeks ( and months) go by. I can always lay it aside and work on something else.

I'm getting itchy to get out in the garden. I have random things blooming. A spot of hyacinths are blooming in the woods from a bulb that apparently dropped unknowingly years ago.   A few daffodils blooming and some pretty little white blooms whose name escapes me just now. It's so nice to have a little bouquet of spring time in the house! Won't be long before it will be the norm!

I am finishing my Winter Break.  I can't believe I've been sick the whole time.  Drats!  Confession... I still did exactly what I had planned on doing - working on Christmas at Hawk Run Hollow while watching tons of TV. I just did it while feeling puny.

Time to get back to it! Thanks so much for stopping by!

SATURDAY HAPPENINGS

I've been looking forward to this weekend and now it's finally here! We kicked it off in a wonderful way-dinner with friends.  It was a day- late Valentine's dinner.  We threw all diets aside and enjoyed steak (for the guys) and Salmon (for us girls), humongous baked potatoes, green beans from my friend's summer garden, and salad. To finish it off we had a delicious homemade pound cake (I had a piece for breakfast, apparently I'm still throwing the diet aside:)).

I'm starting my Winter Break and will have all next week off.  Looks like we're going to have a fairly nice week weather-wise, but  I don't plan on getting out much. I am stitching a new project and want to get a good bit done, so mostly I'll be sitting in my chair watching TV and stitching.  Not a bad way to spend my time off! I would like to do a bit of a clean up in the garden. Still have leaves that need to be removed, honestly, never ending chore!

I am getting  excited about Spring. I can see some green emerging of the tulips I planted.  Not much, just a little poke-up. Our crazy weather making them confused...should we come, should we stay buried? High's in the low 40's today, but later this week we'll be almost 70.

I hope you're having a lovely Saturday! Thanks so much for stopping by.

WINTER PAST TIMES

Winter is quietly passing around here. Cold interspersed with Spring-like warmth is really the norm. Tomorrow a cold rain is promised. I really wish it was today because I'm home and it would be a lovely evening to pass in front of the fire with some stitching and my yummy salmon dinner that my wonderful dh is in the kitchen cooking for me.  Tomorrow I'll have to do some driving and visiting...never fun to do in the rain.

I have a winter cross stitch that I am enjoying. I have lost some of the special order floss and will have to reorder before I can finish. I still have a ways to go so I'll work on other areas until I just have to have it.  I have been waiting impatiently for the 40ct fabric that I ordered for my big project.  I am already behind and I haven't even started yet! I am supposed to do one small block a month.  The small blocks are massive though and will be a real race to actually finish some of them in a month.  All I need to get started is the fabric. Hopefully I'll get it soon.

I hope you are having a lovely Wednesday. Thanks so much for stopping by!!

It's A Bird Fest!

When January rolls around I love to spend my days bird watching.  I have a little table right outside the doors leading to the deck. I can sit in my chair and see birds flitting to and from the table.  Fun! I never tire of seeing the sweet visitors. It's not often that I even see any odd bird.  Just the usual titmice, wrens, cardinals and chickadees.  Usually I have Juncos in the winter, but they have not yet made their appearance this year.  I think I saw one the other day, but usually they visit in flocks.  I look forward to them arriving. Today I used up all my birdseed and had to put a little bread out just to get these pictures.  DH was going to bring me home some tonight, so they are being well fed again.

I've enjoyed my 3 day weekend, tomorrow it will be back to work for me.  Now I'm focused on my week off in February :) Thanks for stopping by, I hope you've had a great Monday.

HOME

Home is such a nice place to be lately! The weather, though warm, has been damp, at times drizzly. I would like it even better if we had some cooler temperatures. They'll be returning soon enough, but the rain will probably be gone by then.   I've been kind of vegetating here. I have several projects that need attention, but both require a trip to Michael's and some online shopping. Got to get in the groove! 

How has your day been? Seems crazy to think that Christmas was just 3 weeks ago. Time has swift wings! Thanks so much for stopping by, happy Monday!

Fog

These are slow days, aren't they? After the bustle of Christmas, January can be a welcome relief! I enjoyed my decorations this year, but when the tree is removed and I can once again look out my back door and enjoy the birds and squirrels, I have a quieter sense of joy. I like to look out on the woods, too. Bare trees have a stark beauty, and isn't it exciting when a flock of migrating birds fill them! 

We are having unseasonably warm weather this week.  The rain started tonight, which really makes me giddy! Warmth and rain sure do bring thoughts of Spring. On a recent walk around the garden  I saw some of my bulbs starting to emerge! That really gets the old gardening engine going! My daffs usually bloom in February.  Muscari, too.

That's all for me today. I hope you're having a great Thursday. Thanks for stopping by!

Nature's Treasures

We are heading in to some nice mild weather this week. I might even be able to get outside and do a little cleanup.  We still have a ton of leaves covering everything.  Believe it or not, there is an oak tree that is stubbornly hanging on to it's leaves. Goodness, it seems like all we do is blow leaves!  A short walk in the woods recently offered up some pretty fungus and mosses.  I like the underside of the fungus; I think it's so pretty!

 My Tea Olive is blooming. It smells heavenly! It's flowers are so tiny, but it's delicious scent alerts as soon as you walk outside. I've kept my shrub rather small, yet it generates enough scent to be able to smell it in the front yard. Wonderful shrub, thick glossy leaves and tiny fragrant flowers. A real winner. It will grow large if you like.

I don't think I'm very pleased with my moss heart.  Drats! I'm wondering if I should have used soil inside instead of the sphagnum moss. I really don't want to try to change it out though, my fingers were sooo sore after I made it back in November. I also was using some moss that I collected on an outing, which is very different from the moss I have in my yard. I like my moss better, it's greener.

I'm joining Mosaic Monday and Outdoor Wednesday this week. I hope we all have a great week. Thanks so much for stopping by!

FAVORITE THING SATURDAY

I am so glad it is Saturday! I don't know why, but for some reason, when you have a short week at school, it seems like the longest week!  I guess you have to produce the same amount of work in a shorter period of time. Today is just for relaxing...and getting the tree down.  That's always a little sad, even though I'm ready. I hate having the tree sitting in the room all dark and empty. It might be tomorrow before they can actually get the tree back to the shed. 

Today I'm joining the fun at Mockingbird Hill today for Favorite Thing Saturday.   I'm showcasing a little photo box.   I love it when something you make turns out just like you want. If I remember correctly, I got the idea from a book by Heidi Swapp.   I bought the little plain wooden box at Michael's. Sadly, they no longer sell these and I never got to make one for pictures of my son.  I bought little wooden circles and painted them black and put a shiny finish on them. Then I used a circle cutter and cut out pictures of my daughter. The little discs have pictures on both sides. 

I stained the little box and put a finish on it. Then I stamped my daughter's name on the lid with a small alphabet stamp.  

On a different note, I was having trouble sleeping last night and decided to see if I could find some tips for better pictures. I have just a simple point and shoot camera that allows you to select a few preset situations (museum, snow, sunlight, etc...). I found two great tips that I will surely use. 

 With flash off, you can bring more light to your subject by focusing on the darkest area, then shooting your subject.  In the pictures below, you can see the difference.  In the second photograph, I first focused on the dark green of the pine, then moved to the little wooden cup.  You can see how much brighter that area is.  

The second tip was to help with blurry photos. It was suggested that you use your camera's timer. This is something that will be a big help to me.  Even when using a tripod my photos are often blurry. I don't think I'll ever get the really sharp photos, but hopefully I can at least overcome the hand-shakiness.

I hope you are having a great Saturday.  Thanks so much for stopping by!

Remembering the Garden, 2012

Once Christmas is over, my mind quickly turns to the garden.  The gray, blustery days we've had recently have lent themselves well to Lazyboy sitting and picture gazing. I should probably be running a vacuum, but there is plenty of time for that, I only have a few days left of my Christmas vacation! I certainly don't want to ruin it all with housework! I had a lot of good in my garden this year, and one REALLY bad thing.  Lets start with the good!

I loved this combination of evergreen, salvia and iris. It was a real winner.

I have a few lilies, and they were lovely, blooming at the same time as the hydrangeas.

 This was the first year for the blooms on the daisy. I had grown it from seed about 3 years ago. My daylillies all bloomed as well as they will in my shady garden. This is my first year with a deer repellent spray, and it worked beautifully. The year before the deer ate almost every fat bud in the garden.

  The petunias were wonderful. I'm always surprised at how well they do in my shady garden!  I lost a Moonbeam Coreopsis that I had had for years, but simple marigolds gave me the yellow I wanted, and several of them came up from seeds, so I didn't even buy them!

The bad this year was that I got some kind of disease on my impatience and lost all of them. I was so disappointed, and a little scared, too. Impatience are the mainstay of my garden. I get so much color from them and enjoy the pastel colors they come in. I had to replace them with begonias that I had in pots. Luckily, the begonias  had some good size on them by the time I used them for replacement, so the garden didn't suffer big holes.

This coming spring, thanks to the deer spray,  I am expecting tulips! I have not grown tulips since the year the deer came through and feasted on about 200 of them! I didn't plant nearly so many, but I am hoping for a beautiful spring!

I am joining Mosaic Monday at Little Red House.  She has a beautiful winter mosaic, you should pop over for a look!  Thanks so much for stopping by, I hope you have a great New Year celebration!.

BACK TO CALM

Starting in August, my days are so full. First the return to school, then birthdays come in September and October. Fall comes, then Thanksgiving and finally, Christmas. It seems that it's a constant flash of ideas and celebrations and business. Then the day after Christmas it all just comes to a stop. Calm, quiet, no where to go, nothing to do. Almost immediately my mind goes back to the garden, to nature, to trees and sky-watching, which brings me to the picture above.  I happened to look out the window and saw the dark, dark clouds as a backdrop to the sun shining on the trees. It was so beautiful! I ran to get the camera and  I got one shot before the sun hid itself behind the clouds. I probably wouldn't even have noticed it a week earlier! While this Christmas was one of my most pleasant, I am happy to have the calmer days again. Days where I will find joy in such simple things as dark clouds and sunlight. 

I hope you are having a lovely Saturday. I am joining Favorite Thing Saturday at Mockingbird Hill Cottage. Thanks so much for stopping by!