A New Baby In The Neighborhood

We have some new neighbors. The house has been vacant for two years and recently someone moved in.
It was about two years ago I found this sweet little angel birdhouse and hung it on a branch of the Japanese maple. No birds showed any interest and the house remained vacant. But one day this week I noticed it swaying and as I watched a little chickadee appeared at the entrance!

I decided I would try to get a closer look.So I edged closer to the tree. There was something a little fluffy looking. Was it a baby bird or just part of the nest?I moved in closer, held my camera up in front of the hole and snapped a picture. One cute little beak was poised just waiting for the parent to return with more food! You can click on the phot to enlarge it.I quickly backed away before the parents came back. Such a simple thing but what a thrill!

I'm not doing thankful Thursday as a regular post anymore , but today I want to say I am thankful to have experienced one of God's miracles....the miracle of birth.

Rhondi xo

One Thing Led To Another

My "to do" list today included working in the garden and cleaning the house. Everything started according to plan. The morning was lovely and fresh so I spent quite a bit of time in my garden. As I always do now that things are blooming, I picked some flowers to bring inside. Today I chose the verbena. The blossoms are huge and it's hard to get a vase that will hold them in. This large green bowl seemed to be the best fit for them and I decided to put them on the mantle in the living room. That's when one thing led to another.

I'm not sure if it was the green bowl, or these beautiful place mats and napkins that my friend Karen gave me, or all the luscious green outside. Whatever it was, it led me to remove all the red in the room and go on a search for other green items I had around the house.I put these little green gourds in a footed Delft bowl that my dad brought back from Holland when I was just a young girl. Put a green plate on a stand beside my blue and white.

Stacked up some blue and green gardening booksAnd the mantle is complete. When I saw how fresh looking the green was I looked around to see what else I had that was green and I remembered that I had a cloth from a few years ago which fits the round table. So I rummaged through the closets until I found it, pressed it and put in on the table. A couple more green books and some greens picked from outside, a pale blue vase and some pale blue books and it's looking very light and airy and springlike.Then the quilt hanging over the couch looked a little too dark, so I took down the blue and white one in the front hall and hung it over the couch. Now what am I going to do with the bare wall in the hall? The paintings my mom did are all the colors of spring, and they were just in the guest room, so I put them on the wall in the hall. Then the black hall table looked too dark, so I moved it to the bedroom hallway and put some fake ferns in an old planter that I had in the attic. So here is a view looking from the dining room. I think I've managed to bring spring inside! Another view from the dining room.Now when you come in our front door, this is how it looks. Hmm....that wall in the hallway at the back looks bare. I wonder what I can find to put there?So that's what happened today when one thing led to another. Meanwhile the housecleaning still needs to be done!

Rhondi xo

Beauty In My Garden

Right now my gardens are filled with aquilegia (columbine). They seed themselves everywhere and I just love the surprise when they pop up in unexpected places! The colors are so beautiful. Some hang down and are sort of ruffled.Some face up. They grow in profusion at the side of our house.

I think they look like God painted each one individually. I hope you enjoyed looking at the beauty in my garden today!

Rhondi xo

A Quilt And A Rose

I love making quilts. I am passionate about making quilts. Sometimes I get consumed with making quilts! This is my latest quilt. A friend asked me to make it for her and gave me carte blanche to do whatever I wanted. I love taking all kinds of bright colorful fabrics and putting them together. I especially like to combine fabrics that don't match and see what happens. The more different patterns I can find, the better.

The knockout roses have started to bloom so I picked on just for you this morning. If you lived nearby I'd deliver to you personally, but you'll have to settle for a virtual rose. Next time I'll show you what else is blooming in my garden.

The forecast is for a beautiful weekend here. Hope the sun shines where you are this weekend.

Rhondi xo

Good Morning

Good morning. I love mornings. Every morning I put on the kettle and make myself a little pot of tea. While I wait for the kettle to boil, I like to go out on the deck just for a moment, weather permitting, and breathe in some fresh air, look at the woods, and listen to the birds.

Then I pour my tea into a mug and settle in my favorite chaise lounge, with my journal , bible, and some other inspirational book. I love my morning routine.

But....we have to get back into our routine of walking first thing in the morning. We keep putting it off, but starting next week, my lovely routine will be disturbed by the need to get healthy! Health will win out over comfort.

Once we get outside and start our walk I always love it because it feels good to get my old body moving, the air is fresh and I love that morning stillness before everyone is awake, but when the alarm goes off at 6:30, there's always the desire just to sleep a little longer.

I really do love mornings though. How about you? Are you a morning person?

Rhondi xo

Put on a Happy Face

Isn't this violet beautiful? It just sort of happened.

I am sending a smile to you today. Click here.

Rhondi xo

The Ugly Duckling Becomes A Swan

In the last post I showed you the bench I got at Goodwill. Here it is now. I'm not sure if this is the final version. My plan was to paint some stripes or something on the legs, but I decided to just leave the legs white for now. The fabric is one of my UFOs. For you non quilters that is an unfinished object. Every quilter has lots of them! It was made with men's shirts that I picked up at Goodwill. I already had all those blocks sewn together with the border of stripes, so I just took it apart and used only what I needed for this project. There is enough left over to make a couple of cushion covers or something. The border just happened to be the exact size for the footstool!

I just happened to have this fringe here too. It came off some old curtains that I got at a thrift shop. This definitely is a thrifted project! Unfortunately I don't have enough trim to go all the way around. The sides you can see in the photo have trim but the ones you can't see don't! So since this has been such a low budget project so far, I am going to keep my eyes open for some trim that is similar and just have 2 different trims on it!

I am very happy with how it turned out.On Friday 2 books that I ordered from Amazon arrived in the mail. I only had a time for a brief glance at them so I have made myself a cup of tea and I am going to put my feet up on my new footstool and get inspired for my next project.

Hope that you are having a restful Sunday. That's what I intend to do.

Rhondi xo