Winter Gardening

I have heard the pleas, begging, ranting and raving.............

BUT

 the snow is NOT going anywhere at this moment.

So

 I decided to do some winter gardening indoors.

I made a couple of terrariums in several glass containers.

I just love baby tears.

I have kept my house plants simple and easy to care for.

They are to tide me over till I can get outside and work in my gardens.

What about the rest of you gardeners who are stuck inside waiting for the snow to melt.

How do you deal with the frozen green thumb?

On With The Birthdays

Once Christmas and the New Year have past then it is time to celebrate the family birthdays.  It has been a tradition to go to my parents home for all of our birthdays for as long as I can remember.  When my mom passed away, it was a reason to get together, although celebrating our birthdays was one of the hardest celebrations without my mom.

She always made sure that we felt special on that one day, our day.

But, we decided to carry on the tradition.

Today we are celebrating my youngest sister's and one of my niece's birthday.

We have pizza and sit around chatting all day long.

Later we have cake and they open presents.

My sister called me earlier in the week, "are you going to make my cake?" she asked.

"Yes, do you want Turtle cake?" I asked.

"If you want to make it" she said.  "I will" I told her.

You may wonder what makes this cake important, it is all about what cake my mom used to make for us. We each have a certain cake that my mom would bake and we still request that cake.  Last year I was trying to diet and I did NOT make THE CAKE, or at least the one she wanted. 

This year, oh well, about the diet after Christmas.

 Damn those Christmas cookies!

The thing about this turtle cake is that it weighed 10 pounds the first time I baked it, oh, it was good, oh so good.  And I not kidding about the weight, we took it to the scale before slicing it open. 

To say that it was rich was an understatement.

This year it does not feel so heavy, but we WILL weigh it to be sure. 

My sister is happy, I made her cake!

Good thing, because I didn't get her any presents.

I asked, and received, "I don't know."

That's OK, my sister is in the process of buying her first house and I will get her something she will need when the keys become hers. 

 Until then, a wrapped box of nothing. 

 Trust me she will laugh.

My day will be filled of laughter and relaxation.
How about you?
 How are you spending this last day of the weekend?

Are you having any cake?

A New Treasure

First, HELLO, I am still here!

Second, I am missing all the time I was able to spend in blog land before I started working at my new job.

Third, I just want to let all of you whom have left comments that I read them all, and I love the sweet things you have to say, but I am not as timely in returning a visit or comment.

However, I love my new job and all of the opportunities it offers me.

I do try to visit my favorite bloggers during my lunch hour but I can not always leave a comment as I want to.

This is the hardest time of the year for me and some others as I have been reading.

WINTER IS VERY LONG HERE!!!!!

I get in a funk.

So please bare with me as I fumble along trying to figure out how to do it ALL again.

I had been trying to do posts on my favorite days, but that didn't always work.

Now I am just trying to get a post in when I can.

  I found I can no longer stay up until Midnight blogging and get up for work at 5:30, that makes for a grumpy mama and wife.

Today I am going to show you a treasure I bought on my way home from work yesterday.  BIG advantage of going back to work is that I now have my OWN spending money that I earned.

Please do not think that I am putting down stay-at-home moms, remember I was one for 8 years.  I just enjoy working outside the home, it suits me better.

All of the work I had to do before I went back to work, oh yeah, I still do it. 

Yes Mr. M. does help out same as before, except he is cooking dinner more.

Now on with the treasure!

Isn't it beautiful? 

 Well, anyway, I just love the legs and the combination of the painted white and dark stained wood.

I was lucky enough to buy this piece before the shop even opened.

I have kept in contact with the owner of the antique shop I had worked for over the last few years. 

She has decided to open up another shop and I happened to pop in to say hello and that is when I fell in love with this table/shelves. 

I can't wait till the new shop is open and I can show you another wonderful place to shop.

I am so tickled it is on my way home from work. 

OH honey, I think I am going to be running late!

I enhanced the white heart box with some of my vintage buttons.

I just love how good white and green look together.

I like having the three shelves to display on. 

You may notice I am already using Spring inspired objects in my home.

I told you, the snow can leave any time now!

One of my favorite #'s 5 and a few favorite treasures.

Of course I have to have to include one of my vintage cameras and candle on one of the shelves.

How about you, any new furniture pieces?

Do you have certain objects that you like to display together?

I am joining Deborah from Common Ground for Vintage Inspiration Friday.

 Cindy from My Romantic Home for Show and Tell Friday.

and Marian from Miss Mustard Seed for Furniture Feature Friday.

These three blogs are wonderful blogs and are worth your time to visit, I know they are high on my list!
I hope you enjoy your weekend!



Decorating Friends

I visited a dear friend this week and I was blown away by her decorating.

Nancy and I met when she used to come to my first shop.

When my business partner moved away, Nancy offered to help me with my shop.
We have been friends ever since.

One of the reasons I loved working with Nancy is that she is so creatively talented. 

She can whip up a beautiful display and it was always a joy to come in after she worked to see how she would work her magic.

 

I was never disappointed.

Even though it is not Christmas and most of us have put away our decorations, I wanted to share some of Nancy's decorating with you.

Did you happen to notice the fence post.

She brought the outside in.

Every corner you turn there is a vignette to please the eye.

Every room you go in there is something wonderful to look at.

I love her use of texture.

Nancy has an amazing quilt collection.

I just love all her red and white quilts.

This display greets you when you come in the side door from the garage.

So much thought goes into placing each decoration.

Nancy does a wonderful job mixed old and new together.

This is Abbey, such a adorable, playful dog.

I know my next dog is going to be a Westie.

Isn't that the cutest face!

She just the sweetest dog I have met.

I just can't wait to come back in Spring, Nancy said she uses more WHITE in her decorating.

I am hoping she will come and give me some inspiration with my home.

 

The Clock That Won't Keep Time

A couple of months ago I was lucky enough to win a CSN gift card giveaway from Mimi at Vanilla Haven.
I wanted to share with you what I purchased with my gift card.

It was hard to choose from SO many choices.

Finally, after waiting until the very last day to choose, and after many visits to the CSN website.

This is what I picked.

I happen to really like clocks.

  Almost every room in my home has at least one.

This one looks antiqued and it is large, 24" round.

Right now the clock is in the living room.

But.

If you were to visit my home you might wonder why none of these beautiful clocks are 

 ON TIME!

Or if they even

WORK?

At one time they were,

on time,

and

they did work.

UNTIL

Mr. M. removed the batteries

one

by

one.

You see, the noise of the tick, tick, tick, tick drives him up a wall,

when he is trying to sleep.

He is a napper!

I showed him the new clock.

  Nice, isn't it?  I asked. 

Yes, he agreed, but what is the hanging thing at the bottom?  He asked.

The pendulum.  I answered.

What exactly does it do?  He asked.

It swings back and forth keeping the time.  I answered.

I knew.

I did not really have to ask.

But, I did.

Are you going to let me put a battery in it?

Not likely, was his answer.

In a joking manner I told him I would hang it as HIGH as I could so he could not reach it.

But I won't.

It won't be keeping time, but I love it anyway.

Thank you Mimi.

If you have not met Mimi or visited her blog, you must stop by, say hello for me.

Just like me, I think she is trying to think of anything but WINTER!

Or

You could spend an hour or two visiting CSN, so much to look at.

Well, I hope you have a great day, I am off to find a battery!

Keeping Busy

I am stuck as to what I should do next, start a new project or finish something I already started.

Oh, I know what I SHOULD do.

However should and want are two entirely different things in my world.

This beauty is in my basement.

I am thinking of moving it upstairs, the only problem is WHERE?

and I have to ask my sister "what are you doing today?"

 This is usually code for "want to move some furniture with me?"

Most of the time I know she makes up excuses because I make her move TOO much furniture.

Anyway, that is one of my projects this year.

I am having a hard time getting started.

I always have a motivation problem after the holidays, but I am thinking that inspiration from all of you wonderful bloggers is going to help get me motivated.

I may not do the laundry but I will be painting and sewing some more.

The only problem is finding more time in my days.

I have officially started my new job and I am still trying to figure out how to do it ALL!

The laundry pile seems a little larger.

We are either eating more or the dishes not getting done.

The Christmas decorations are almost all put away, but even those last few are driving me crazy.

I have cleaned out most of the Christmas from my dinning room.

I left some greenery to give it color. 

There is lots of snow on the ground and it is still coming down. 

 Living in the Northeast can do that to ya.

I like snow for Christmas, in fact I do get upset if there is none, BUT, it can go away now!

I am always ready to start thinking of gardening even while the snow is on the ground.

This year I am dreaming of starting a formal garden in our large back yard.

We have over 5 acres of land and most of it is grass, under the snow of course.

 

I am trying to break up the large space by creating different areas and I am hoping that a formal English garden with a cottage garden feel will help.

 

 

arhzine.com

Source unknown

Kind of a combination of the two above.

I am thinking of an arbor at the end of the path with a bench seat to enjoy the view.

So, what are you daydreaming about as you wish for Spring to arrive?

Pillow Projects

Well, I am about 95% done taking down my Christmas decorations.

I have all the trees dismantled, except the HUGE tree in the living room.  I have taken off the ornaments, I still have lights to remove and branches to take down.  I am actually pretty happy with the progress so far.  I do have a miscellaneous wreath and some odd florals that need to be put away.

I always happen to find an ornament or trinket months later tucked away somewhere that I missed putting away.

While I was taking breaks from undecorating I tried my new sewing machine.

I wish that I could say that I have been sewing like a mad woman since buying the machine several months ago.

But I can't.

In fact, up until last month I had only sewed a small slipcover for a footstool.

One of my resolutions this year is to do more sewing.

So far, so good.

I made three pillow slips.

I made them using vintage table cloths and sweaters I bought a Salvation Army.

I made them envelope style so I could just pop them in the washing machine when they get dirty, and of course they are my favorite color

WHITE.

Isn't it the cutest little edge detail!

I used the end of a table runner.  I took me a little extra time to figure out how to get the edge on the outside and not sew it inside out by accident like I did with my last sewing project.

 I love how it turned out I think I will try it again.

I must say after working on these pillows I did wander around the house looking for more sewing projects to work on. 

 I am thinking a trip to the fabric store might be necessary soon.

I am joining The Creative Girl for Just Something I Whipped Up sewing edition, and a new link party Masterpiece Monday with Mary from Boogieboard Cottage. 

Sew, how about you?

Have you been busy in the new year?