The Last of Summer

Mom brought these on Tuesday and said they would be the last of Summer.
I just love pink zinnias!
My latest "trick" is teaching Baby Cakes to "smell" flowers. Michael was surprised the other day when I showed him that David could smell (and not grab) the flowers.
I didn't quite catch the sniff.
This tiny garden may not look great, but it was a very pleasant surprise. When I went to bed this summer the plants were about 2 inches high. I gave up on them, knowing the soil was horrendous and the watering outside of my responsibility. How surprised I was to look out the window in September and find the flowers in bloom!

Keeping Up With The Jones'

Michael and I had a good laugh this morning. Despite my being confined to bed, I still seem to be keeping up with what is happening with the neighbors.

Several years ago I spent 9 months on the couch, looking out the window observing the five houses I could see from where I lay, and their occupants. I was not acquainted with these neighbors, but got to know them in my mind as I imagined their lives from their comings and goings. I even figured out a mystery or two by the time we moved.

In my new neighborhood, I've been narrating events to Michael concerning the house I see out to the right of our bedroom window. So far, the short story is:

When we moved in people were living in the house. One day, some of the contents moved out, and I assumed perhaps there had been a divorce. Several months later the house became totally vacant. With some other sleuthing, I determined the house was up for sale by the bank. Recently it has been painted inside. With a bad hail storm this summer I saw an inspector come out and mark the roof. I assumed his findings were: not enough damage. This morning a man and woman team arrived to inspect again and I watched the woman mark the roof with chalk. I decided she had found more evidence and determined: enough damage to warrant a new roof. So, now I'm just trying to determine who sent which inspector. Most likely the next show I'll be watching is the installation of a new roof. The entertainment one can find from a second story window!
Here are the roses again after they've opened up. I'm certain God sent them straight from Heaven through my friends, to me, knowing I needed that visible encouragement from Him.

Fall Has Arrived!

The winds of Fall have blown in and with them came a very unexpected delivery -- 36 mini roses to our doorstep!Friends from church had ordered flowers for me to help cheer me up and bring a bit of Autumn beauty to our home.
There were two bunches of flowers expertly packed with florist foam at the bottom keeping the stems hydrated.
Here they are in the vase that came inside the box. They've opened up just a bit since I took these pictures.
I am captivated by the speckled roses -- I've never seen them before and they are just gorgeous in real life!

I must say I was so blessed by these lovely flowers and the sweet thoughts from our friends. I can count on one hand how many times I've received flowers delivered, so this was a big deal. (Lest you think poorly of my husband, he is very thoughtful and likes to bring me flowers when possible -- in Scotland flowers were cheap and easily accessible, so Michael brought them home a lot. We just have not indulged much in "delivery")

I have this memory as a young child of about 6 of my Uncle Bill sending me flowers for my birthday -- all done up in an arrangement and delivered by the local florist. I suddenly remembered that today and thought how nice a thing that was to do. Think how grown up and important that made me feel!

Now, I shall have to save my next post for tomorrow, or whenever I feel up to it. I'm anxious to create a post all about the various books I've been reading....

This is a Story of a Pumpkin

Rachel loves to write stories. It seems every time I turn around she has another little book to show me. She wrote this story of a pumpkin recently and sent it home with Grandma to illustrate. Here is the final version:This is a story of a pumpkin
Once upon a time there was a pumpkin patch
One day one pumpkin rolled away into the woods
A man found it. He took it home.
He cooked onions and tomatoes
then ate the pumpkin for dinner

the end.

Where is Fall?

Everyone is wondering what has happened to Fall, here in the Midwest. (This picture is from last year.) We've had temperatures in the mid to upper 80's for nearly a week. Rumor has it that cooler weather will be arriving at the end of the week. I just am lamenting the fact that as soon as we can turn the air off and open the windows, we'll have to close them to keep the heat in.

I'm not sure anything very exciting happened here over the weekend. We did get a surprise call from my Mom on Saturday wondering if we could use some help. Her boss told her she could leave 3 hours early from work. I had been praying all week that God would send someone to do the ironing. Michael had no trousers or short sleeve shirts left by Saturday, but I was still praying. I was so thankful for Mom's unexpected call and for all the ironing she did.

Baby Cakes is growing up and becoming more willful. He's figured out how to scream when his siblings annoy him. He has ceased to be that sweet little thing that smiled all day long. (He still smiles and does very cute things, but he also can scream now.) Today he insisted on sitting on my lap, or on the book, or on Andrew while we tried to do school. He says, "Uppum."

I suppose those are all the ramblings for now. I haven't taken many pictures recently.

Color Change

I've been wondering about colors on my blog. I chose the black originally so the photos would stand out, but was wondering if that was too harsh on the eyes. So, I switched to green, but now am wondering if that is too bright on the eyes. :) Maybe my dear artist readers can help me out -- what color is good for the photos?

12 Chairs, 10 Stories

For some time I've had in mind a series of "stories" to publish on my blog. The stories are about the acquisition of the various chairs around our home.

A number of you read the Eyes of Wonder blog that we all loved so much. Interestingly, it was that blog that got me interested in blogging and introduced me to many of the blogs I now read. I know many of you started journals similar to what Jewels showed on her blog. My sisters and I had an afternoon of pure fun getting ours started and then I never got to writing in it until I was stuck in bed. It's funny how much I found to write in my journal when I was doing nothing but sitting in bed all day!

Anyway, as you will notice in some of the sample pages below, I seem to have a thing about chairs. I noticed I kept being drawn to chairs and found them pasted all over the pages of my journal. Maybe a chair symbolizes rest and relaxation and that's why I like them so much.
Then I mentally looked around my house and realized our house is covered with all sorts of various chairs, each with an interesting story. And that's where I got the idea to tell some of the stories behind the 12 interesting chairs we have right now.
We moved home from Scotland nearly two years ago with 13 pieces of luggage and 30 boxes (20 being books). We had our wedding presents in storage, with some furniture that amounted to Michael's desk, our bed, and a few dressers. Friends so kindly donated any bits and pieces they had and then we started keeping our eyes out for odds and ends at garage sales and thrift stores.

This chair, and its twin, sits at the far end of our kitchen/dining room. There are five windows surrounding this area and the light that comes in makes the room so cheerful and inviting.

One Monday evening as we were taking the garbage out to the sidewalk, Michael noticed a wicker chair sitting by one of our neighbor's curb, quite obviously meant for the garbage. We decided to give it a home (that night we also acquired another chair I'll mention some time, a coffee table and a garden hose winder). It took a bit of work to clean the chipped paint, and a spray can or two of white paint, but then we had a nice wicker chair for the kitchen.

Several weeks later Michael was driving into our development one Saturday and saw ANOTHER wicker chair in front of the same house. Since it wasn't garbage night yet, he decided to knock and ask about the chair. The owner heard Michael's story and was so pleased we wanted the chair, and delighted we had the first one too! So, down the street came Michael with the wicker twin which we then cleaned and painted.

Early in the summer I managed to find some material I really liked at Walmart and got two pillows sewn for the chairs. I still have plans to sew cushions for the seat bottoms.......

So, that is the story of the first two chairs. When I feel like it, I'll put up another story. :)