U is for Unusual

…not habitually or commonly occurring or done.

It’s time for ABC Wednesday and the letter U!

When our daughter Katie and I visited Airlie Gardens in Wilmington, North Carolina we came upon this unusual structure in their sculpture garden.

This Bottle Chapel was created as a three-dimensional representation of Minnie’s paintings.

I’m adding a link that shows some of Minnie Evans’ actual art pieces.

Thank you to the ABC Wednesday Team for 7 years of ABC fun and to Roger who tackled the letter U this week!

Timber!

Because of plans for a driveway this great old tree had to go. This is also a very messy tree with the pine needles that cover everything on this side of the shop.

We got a very good bid to chop the tree down and get rid of the branches leaving us with the larger tree cuts for fire wood. Even though the driveway will be a 2015 project we decided to take advantage of the good price we got for the job.

Monday at ten the work began. I watched from a safe distance capturing the moment the tree was felled.

Timber!

Now the wood chipper was put to work. They tried to talk me into keeping the chips. It’s just not easy to unload them. I just smiled and said they could keep the chips.

It was hard enough to move all the little logs to a central location. Dear is away until tomorrow so I got the wheel barrow out and got to work.

I got my heart rate up in no time flat.

We will miss the lovely tree view we had but we will enjoy finally having a paved driveway to our garage and no pine needles to clean up.

Another view of the before and after looking down what will eventually be a driveway. This tree team probably underbid this job so I rounded up the cash payment I gave them and will have them back again to grind the stump down before work commences on the driveway.

Dear has been in Chicago at another conference since last Friday and I’m looking forward to his return early on Tuesday. This is the last trip that we will take separately for the rest of the year, Lord willing. Dear and I have had enough time apart this year.

We are having a great stretch of dry days with highs into the 70’s. Perfect weather for me. How are things in your world?

Juniper Tree

I committed the bloggy error of not taking recent photos of this juniper tree before we cut it down. That meant I had to go digging in the archives for photos I might have and this is the best one I could find.

What we found out this past weekend is that raccoons were using our Juniper tree as a ladder to gain access to our roof. We did not like that idea at all. We have had problems with rats, too, so we thought it would be best not to have sturdy tree branches close enough to the house for varmints to access our roof.

I’ll miss the views it enhanced from my computer window and our living room window.

We still have to deal with these stumps. I was joking around with Dear about carving something into these stumps for yard art. Taking the tree down also gives us more urgency to finally finish replacing the siding on our house. So many projects so little time when your handy man works full time!

If we ever put a fire pit in somewhere on our property we could use this wood once it seasons. We have on more huge tree that we hired someone to take down and we’ll have lots more wood. I did take before photos of that tree and will share the proper before and afters of that tree.

In the meantime we have lots of yard waste to deal with besides our weekly mowing the lawn yard waste. We have wondered on many occasions why yard waste is not collected every week during the summer months instead of every other week.

Thankfully when the tree guy comes to chop down our huge tree on Monday he will be putting all the branches through a chipper and taking the waste away with him. He will leave the large logs for us.

I’ll take some photos of the tree guys at work.

It’s June! How did that happen so fast? We have some fun events scheduled for June like our end of year barbecue with our small group, my niece and her husband are coming to visit, a fun day with the MGCC girls, and a wedding in Portland the end of June. In the midst of all that we have to demo our main bathroom and order all the new fixtures. What do you have going in June?

The Simple, Earnest Prayer ~ Hymn

The Simple, Earnest Prayer

In the twilight of the morning,
When the shadows steal away,
And we wake from balmy slumber
To behold another day,
Let us go alone in secret,
And unburden all our care
At the feet of our Redeemer,
In the simple, earnest prayer.

Refrain

Let Thy presence, blessèd Savior,
Our protection ever be;
Give us strength for every trial,
Keep, oh, keep us close to Thee.

In the noontide, calm and peaceful,
When we pause awhile to rest,
Ere the sun in all its glory
Is declining towards the west;
In the midst of our temptation,
When the cross is hard to bear,
If we cannot go in secret,
God will hear the silent prayer.

Refrain

When the toils of day are over,
And we seek the hallowed place
Where by faith we meet our Savior,
And adore Him for His grace;
How we feel our burden lighter,
Till we loose our weight of care,
While we lift our hearts together
In the simple, earnest prayer.

Refrain

Words: Fanny Crosby

Bloggy Friends ~FFF

My favorite blessings from blogging have been my face to face meet ups with the individuals I’ve learned about from their personal blogs. The first blogger I met and who became my walking buddy while Dear and I lived in Camarillo is Willow from Willow’s Cottage. While our friendship continued we met up with Sara from Come Away With Me at The Getty Villa. Willow and Sara already knew each other. Besides the Getty Villa we met up again for some time at the Getty Museum before I moved back to Seattle.

On one of my trips across Los Angeles to visit my folks in 2009 Cori G! from Brambleberry Cottage (formerly Gingerbread and Co.) and I set up a meeting over coffee in Orange County, California. It was a delight to meet Cori. We were able to meet up again on one of my trips back to Southern California and have a meal and stroll through a antique market in the city of Orange.

On Dear and my road trip moving back to Seattle in 2010 we met up with Sandy from Reluctant Entertainer and her husband at the Winchester Inn in Southern Oregon. It was a delight.

In July of 2010 Dear and I met the Scrabble Queen from Scrabblequeen Knits for breakfast while we were in the Sacramento area for a funeral. She gifted me with some wonderful loose tea from England!

On our sister trip to Victoria, B.C. to celebrate my 60th birthday my sisters and I were treated to wonderful time with the lovely Pondside from Life Between the Ponds.

Oh dear me…I forgot another major bloggy meet-up. Jill from Jill’s World of Research, Reaction and Millinery came to visit in my home and we attended the Lavender festival together in July of 2011. Maybe it was the home part that made me think it was a family visit instead of a bloggy visit.

We had a great day seeing beautiful lavender fields, eagles, and eaglets and a baby seagull. Sorry for the oversight dear Jill!

At a book signing in Winnepeg/Manitoba I was able to meet Millie from Wreathmaker. What a fun surprise to see her and her hubby at McNally Robinson bookstore.

Just this year on Katie and my roadtrip from Seattle to North Carolina we arranged a meeting over lunch in Kansas City, Missouri with Pam from Abiding With Love. We had a wonderful meal paid for by Pam’s husband and great conversation with Pam and her daughter.

What a blessing it has been to get to know these ladies and enjoy their thoughts and adventures and beautiful tables, tea settings, recipes, decorating, devotionals, book recommendations, etc. etc.

Judy correctly pointed out that there is another group of women that I met through blogging that have changed my life forever. This next photo is from the first time I met five of the Mennonite Girls Can Cook! This meeting was in the Spring of 2010. All ten of us would meet when we got together in British Columbia to sign the contract for our first book in the summer of 2010. These girls are a big part of my life now and they are more like family so that’s probably why I forgot that initially it was because of blogging that we came together!

These are my favorites for Susanne’s Friday’s Fave Five at Living to Tell the Story. It would be fun to meet Susanne some day!

Good Fences #10

My fence this week is from Bellefontaine Cemetery in St. Louis, Missouri. My daughter and I spent a few hours here on our road trip from Seattle to North Carolina. If you like cemeteries this really is a worthwhile one to visit with many wonderful monuments and so much interesting history.

I’m joining TexWisGirl at Run *A* Round Ranch for Good Fences.

Thank you for being a fabulous hostess!

Established 1985!

On May 3rd during our cross country road trip from Seattle to Jacksonville, N.C. Katie and I were able to spend two days in Asheville and on one of those days we toured the Biltmore House and Gardens including Antler Village and the Biltmore Winery. Our Katie was born in 1985 so we thought we’d pause at the door to the Biltmore Winery and snap a photo of Katie under the sign. The tour of the winery including a wine tasting was free.

The tour was short and informative. The wine tasting was extensive and gave you a full range of what the winery has to offer.

After our long day at the Biltmore Estate we decided on finding a grocery store to purchase items for a picnic dinner in the hotel room. It was good just to put our feet up and enjoy our picnic.

So thankful for Katie and my time together on our road trip and stops along the way. Also thankful for our time together in Jacksonville, North Carolina working hard to get things set up for Andrew and Katie’s reunion and short time left there.

Back to Washington State and this old house. I’ve been able to do enough around home that I seem to have found my comfort zone again. Such a good feeling to be able to relax amidst any turmoil that comes my way.

I’m joining Mrs. Olsen for Share Your Cup Thursday #104.

The party where you share things that make you happy.

Adventures with my children and husband make me happy along with sitting down to a nice meal.

T is for Trees!

It’s time for ABC Wednesday hosted by some brilliant bloggers here and across the sea.

While I was in North Carolina helping our daughter get ready for her husband’s homecoming we took a day away from the frenzy to enjoy Airlie Garden in Wilmington. Look at these majestic trees filled with Spanish Moss in the garden.

Since we are on the letter T here are the turtles we saw this day, too.

I’m back home in Washington State now catching up with yard work and house work. It is so good to be home.

Biltmore Bass Pond and Waterfall

When we were done at the Bass Ponds we found our way back to the Biltmore House and took the bus back to the parking lot where we parked our car. We then drove to Antler Hill Village. After all our walking about the grounds and trekking through some warm trails we were really ready for some nice refreshment.

We had a great lunch at Cedric’s Tavern named after the family dog. “Named for George Vanderbilt’s beloved Saint Bernard, Cedric, this warm, relaxing tavern overlooks the village green at Antler Hill Village. The décor, ambience, and menu pay tribute to the neighborhood pubs of Britain and Ireland. Enjoy satisfying pub fare alongside robustly flavored American and global cuisine presented with Biltmore flair.”

We weren’t disappointed by the food or drink at Cedric’s.

So I’m still catching up on our Road Trip posts. I only have a couple more. I was so busy over the weekend I really didn’t have time to come up with something more current. Here we are in the last week of May. Soon the wedding month will be here and this year we actually have a wedding to attend in June. We also are getting some visitors in June. This week we will make some decisions on our main floor bathroom. We were so gung ho to have it gutted by now but here we are dragging our feet. It’s hard to decide how much to let someone else do and charge you an arm and a leg for…

What’s happening this week in your world?

Catching Up…

After being gone so long from my home I’ve been spending lots of time catching up and getting things around this old house back to normal.

We don’t have a gardening service so the first thing I addressed was our lawn and some beds and shrubs. I spent four and a half hours last Thursday and my body is still recovering from being taxed like that.

I came home to blooms that were spent and blooms that were thriving. These are the sweet rosebud azaleas I bought with a gift card from the Mennonite Girls Can Cook to purchase something to plant in memory of my mom who passed away last September 13th.

This next collage is of my older azalea plants.

Most of my rhoddys are on their way out but I’ve been able to enjoy a few blooms.

While I was gone my pink dogwood bloomed and Dear took some photos for me. This is the fullest it’s bloomed since we planted it a couple years ago. The green leafed shot is the stage it is at now.

I’m so excited that my young peony bush has over 6 buds this year. Last year we only had one.

After I mowed and watered I took this before photo of our patio. Yesterday Dear put the covers on. I’ll take more photos of the after shots when a couple more projects get done like pressure washing.

When we went to barbecue steaks yesterday our barbecue would not cooperate so Dear has some extensive cleaning and de-clogging of the poor old thing before it lights up. Plan B went into effect and we broiled the steaks inside and microwaved the corn. It all tasted good and sharing the meal with our kids was wonderful.

It’s so so good to be home again. It’s so nice that Dear gets a long weekend at home before he has to travel again next Friday to Chicago. I can’t stop thanking God for the fact that our son-in-law is home from Afghanistan. We continue throughout this Memorial weekend and beyond to be thankful for those who have served and are serving our country.

What have you been up to this weekend?

The Happy Wonderer ~ ellen b.

To honor and encourage

U is for Unusual

Timber!

Juniper Tree

The Simple, Earnest Prayer ~ Hymn

The Simple, Earnest Prayer

Bloggy Friends ~FFF

Good Fences #10

T is for Trees!

Biltmore Bass Pond and Waterfall

Catching Up…