Category Archives: Our Country Bungalow

Spring Firsts

On our trip to Spokane on Tuesday we saw the new roadside sign from Williams Valley Mennonite Church as we drove through the little town of Clayton. Such a great verse for Spring!

Speaking of Spring we have a few signs on our property that Spring is springing before our eyes.

The birds have been very busy. Two nests in two of our roadside shrubs.

Greg spotted this mud lined nests on his way to our mailbox.

I wonder which birds made these nests.

Hooray for these sweet daffodils that are finally opening up. They make me smile. We’ve been dropping below freezing the mornings this week but the daffodils don’t seem to mind.

What signs of Spring are you enjoying as we head into Easter week?

Seventy Five!

Today is my seventy fifth birthday. God has been so good to me. We will be traveling all the live long day today. From Cambridge to London to Seattle to Spokane and then home again, home again, jiggity jig!

It will be good to be home again and to get our bearings.

Here are some birthday photos from the past.

 

 

 

 

The lines have fallen for me in pleasant places;
    indeed, I have a beautiful inheritance.

Thank You, LORD!

 

Currently

I’m enjoying the sun on the snow and how it sparkles.

The snow crown on the bird bath caught my eye. I like it even better with the sunshine on it.

Before our snowfall I got some shots of Quail. They love our Silver Spruce Bush.

When we step out on our deck at times upwards of twenty quail will fly out of that bush!

It wasn’t planned but when JJ arrived on Monday afternoon, his mom mentioned we were twins and needed to take a photo!

Today is Women’s Bible study morning and I made some Date Nut loaves to slice and share with the ladies. I’ll share the recipe and photos if they turned out good.

Before I close off this post I’m going to give you some unsolicited advice.

Do not buy furniture with a black finish if you do not like to dust! 

If you are under 60, celebrate the fact that you can still get up off the ground easily.

When I have to kneel down it is a major event for me to get up again.

Enjoy the rest of the week!

Triple Tuesday!

We’ve got the trifecta of celebrations happening here for this jam packed Tuesday.

There’s Fat Tuesday/Mardi Gras and Pancake Tueaday/Shrove Tuesday and this year it is also Chinese New Year/Lunar New Year!

Here is how I’m melding all these celebrations tonight.

Our dining room table is set for company we are having this evening. I pulled out the Chinese souvenirs I bought in San Francisco’s China Town back in 2016.

Our menu’s nod to the Chinese New Year will be Egg Drop Soup for our starter course.

My nod to Mardi Gras and the Fat Tuesday are my fleur de lis napkin rings.

Wanting to also fit in the Pancake Tuesday tradition, for dessert we are having ‘Russian Pancakes’ or better known as Blintzes.

I mentioned yesterday that there was talk of snow. We ended up getting a good 4 inches of snow on Monday!

It’s melting already.

These two sent me a selfie with the Vintage Valentine Day Cards I sent them.

The love continues!

The Irish Dancers that our Addy is part of are dancing tonight in town at a Mardi Gras celebration.

Are you giving a nod to any of these celebrations?

 

Weekend Re-Cap

On Valentine’s Day, these two cuties arrived at our door with their mom to deliver some Chocolate Covered Strawberries. They were making the rounds to their loved ones. So very thoughtful. They were delicious.

Our family exchanged greetings via texts. Greg and I enjoyed steaks off the Traeger for our Valentine Day Meal.

These were some of our views on the way to church on Sunday morning.

When the interesting bank of fog/low clouds burned off we had a beautiful Sunshine filled day. We received photos from the Western side of our State and we reciprocated with photos from the Eastern side.

From Kirkland where sunglasses were a must to Colville where sunglasses were optional.

Being out of doors was a welcomed treat.

The blue sky and sunshiny views were so appreciated! Thank you, Lord!

Our daughter sent a photo of her latest hair color just in time for Valentine’s day.

It’s the start of the third week of February already. Time is flying. Five more weeks of Winter! Maybe I’ll have some snow photos to share this week if the predictions are correct.

Hope all is well in your corner of the world.

Thankful

Some things I’m thankful to God for on this Thursday…

We had some nice clear weather for our safe trip to Spokane and back again. It was also warm enough to shop without a coat to and from the car. We detoured from our usual route home and stopped in Elk for lunch. From Elk we drove on backroads to Loon Lake and then north again to Colville.

This stoplight in the town of Chewelah south Colville is the one light we encounter for over 50 miles as we traveled! Once we get to Colville we encounter one more signal before we reach our home.

One of our stops in Spokane was at Trader Joe’s. They had loads of tulips for sale. I chose the 10 stem option for $6.99. Twenty stems were $12.99. I love tulips! God created so many different flowers for us to enjoy.

We stopped at Hobby Lobby for Valentine Day goodies, HomeGoods to replace a large casserole dish, (One of mine got a crack in it) TJMaxx for a baby shower gift, and before we finished up at Costco for gasoline and some other necessities we went through the new car wash across the way from Costco. What a treat to have a clean car!

Our Winter Women’s Bible Study starts today. I’m looking forward to studying about Heaven, When Faith Becomes Sight, with other women in our church.

Posting this a little later than usual. What are you thankful for today?

 

Changes

Sometimes it just takes a little change to brighten your prospect.

This past weekend we decided to do a little jimmying of our furniture to see how we’d like it. Of course as soon as the huge heavy sofa was moved, the rug had to be moved, tables had to be moved, lights had to be moved and wall art went to more suitable locations.

I’m adding a daytime photo of the room after this post was published. I’ll share a couple more on my Hodgepodge post, tomorrow.

In total bloggy fail, I did not take a before photo.

We are happy with the change in that it gives us regular sitters a new prospect around the room and to the outside. We are looking forward to a full house to see how our ‘people’ like the changes.

Our ‘littles’ who aren’t so little anymore gave the room a thumbs up!

It was JJ’s afternoon yesterday while Addy was at Irish dance. He looked in the refrigerator and announced to me that he was making guacamole. He had the avocados out and said “Baba, I need onion powder and lime juice, and a little salt, please.”

“I don’t think we have any chips so you’ll have to use crackers.” He was good with that. He did end up having a favorite of the two crackers. Note to Baba.

I’m happy that our grands can come up with good snacks and have kitchen skills that will serve them well.

How is February starting off for you?

Ground Hog Day

Will winter linger, or Spring prevail? When I wake up and hear the prediction, I’ll add it here.

Update: Looks like Punxsutawney Phil saw his shadow so 6 more weeks of Winter. 

I’m chuckling because my calendar already tells me that the first day of spring comes in the 6th week from now!

Happy February everyone!

Here is what things looked like on our travel to church on Sunday, the first of February.

As you can see it has been pretty dreary and our mountains are hidden.

These shots are out our slider to the back acres.

It seems all our snow moved east for now!

Soon this dreary landscape will be transformed again to all the joy that Spring has to offer.

We made some adjustments to our family room furniture arrangement and moved around some lamps and wall-art. So far we are enjoying the new minor changes. It will be fun to see what our grandkids think about the changes when they are here this afternoon. I’ll try and remember to take a photo of them in the midst to share.