Tender Mercies…

icy 010God’s faithfulness is revealed anew every morning.  My Lenten Rose is poking up it’s tender shoots from the earth showing me that once again life will be renewed.

This is one of my favorite flowers and just to see it in all its stages brings me joy.

IMGP1064icy 013

The shrubs in the front planter are showing off their red berries. I’ll have to investigate the name of this shrub. It stays green all year round but only shows off the berries part of the year.

2014-01-07 icyMy Christmas card line reminds me of many lives and families that have been a part of our history. I love getting cards and updates in the mail at Christmas time. This is the last part of Christmas that I haven’t put away yet.

I’m also enjoying some new gifts from family and friends.

IMGP1078A nice container to store my salt to use while cooking right next to my stove top.

IMGP1077I’m always drawn to heritage items that remind me where my ancestors came from.

icy 003This new gift to us makes drinking coffee very easy in the morning and we never have a half pot of coffee to dump. Hot water is also easy to dispense for tea.

IMGP1081This drawer of pods for the coffee maker tucks away nicely and is out of sight until you want a cuppa.

icy 005I’ll never tire of the gift of a photograph of our kids. When they come framed it’s twice as nice.

It’s really been amazing to hear and see news about the weather across our nation and in other countries. I hope you all have power and can stay nice and cozy and warm in your home.

I forgot to mention that my arm and shoulder feel great. It must have been a pinch that got un-pinched and for that I am so grateful!

Almost Fully Bloomed…

Our hydrangea is finally showing us it’s color. Soon it will be fully bloomed.

I made 2 trips to Canada this past week. My first trip was full with a reunion of the girls from Mennonite Girls Can Cook. It is rare that the 10 of us can all be together but we were able to pull it off on Wednesday of last week. We enjoyed a full day together with great food and fellowship. Tuesday and Thursday sandwiched all 10 of us together on Wednesday with smaller gatherings. Hearty slices of time with a wonderful filling in between!

Fun little gifts kept coming out at our different gatherings. Here are the gifts I brought home across the line…

Gracious words are like a honeycomb, sweetness to the soul. Proverbs 16:24

Friends are the flowers in the garden of life…

This description for this gift made me smile!

A fun basket of treats on my bed from my hostess Marg. Marg brought all of us a special treat from St. Petersburg, beautifully woven napkins. My gift to the girls was not confiscated at the Border…

Bags filled with lavender. I’ll be staying in the U.S.A. this week but am looking forward to a soccer game with the English Premier team Chelsea vs. the Seattle Sounders on Wednesday.

I’m linking up with Mary for Mosaic Monday.

Honoring Our Heritage…

…and since we are on the letter H this week for Alphabe-Thursday I decided to share. Thank you Miss Jenny for keeping us on track.

It’s hard to take a photo of photos especially when they are framed under glass. This grouping of happy photos makes me smile. It was one of those gifts that came together so well. When I saw the photo of my mother and me (photo on top) I remembered I had a similar photo with our daughter Katie (middle photo). Then I remembered I had a similar photo of Dear with his mother (bottom photo). I set out to find the right frame so I could have them all together in one grouping. A family heritage gift for Katie. Hope you are all have a harbor full of  happy thoughts today. I’ll come to hover over your H posts soon…

Fun Fall Gifts

Our Fall Women’s Bible Study is coming to an end this Friday. I’m a table leader so I needed to find some little gifts for my ladies. I was pleased to find these Autumn leaf mugs at Homegoods this week that I ended up filling with a variety of tea bags. The mugs were $3.00, yippee! I already had the cellophane bags and the ribbon was left over from another event.

Photobucket is holding all my photos from 2007-2015 hostage and demanding a ransom for me to access them. I’m slowly cleaning up many of my posts where PB have added ugly black and grey boxes where my photos used to be. So frustrating!

Walking Again

Both Willow and I are back in town at the same time again and we started getting serious about walking this week. We had 3 good days of walking getting in over 9000 steps each day.

 

Thursday morning we were blessed with several glimpses of wildlife. We saw this deer which was a first for me in Willow’s neighborhood. We saw a Hawk sparring with some crows. We saw a great group of Quail, too.

 

I was in Seattle for 6 weeks and Willow was in England during part of that time. She brought me this fun Tea Towel from The Twinings in London.

She also gave me this Sweet Bavarian Plate. Thanks again Willow!

It feels so good to be walking regularly again.

Photobucket is holding all my photos that I posted on my blog from 2007-2015 hostage and replaced them with big black and grey boxes with threats. So discouraging…as I’m slowly trying to clean up thousands of posts!

Mother’s Day 2008 ~ Whittier

 

Our Mother’s Day Celebrations started early this year. I was away from all my children this year so they got together and created the best gift I could possibly ask for. Each of them wrote to me and included a photo of themselves. Each note was unique just like they are. They were put together in the book cover you see in the center of the collage. I was in Mom heaven! On Mother’s Day morning Dear was very sweet and took me to the Rose Bowl Flea Market with a pocket full of cash. I’ll post more about that later. After we walked the isles and isles of goodies at the Flea Market we headed to Whittier for a smaller family gathering with my Sister’s Family and my Mom and Dad. My brother Steve was able to come, too.

 

As we drove through Whittier to my sister’s house we were greeted with the beautiful purple blooms on the Jacaranda Trees.

 

My Father and Mother who are always a joy to be around.

 

My Father and Jackson (Great grandson)

 

Jackson with his friend.

 

We were surounded by beautiful blooms on potted plants and fresh bouquets.

 

We started lunch with my mother’s Borsch and then had fondue. Main course of beef, chicken, cheese, bread, and vegetables. Then a dark chocolate and milk chocolate fondue mix for our fruit and wafers and biscotti. Everything was very good.

I brought my mom, sister, and niece these Johnson Bros. mugs filled with 3 kinds of Tea.

My nieces gave me the potted pink hydrangea in the top collage.

It was a beautiful day of honoring mom’s and enjoying each others company. Thank you Len and Kathy for always opening your home to family. Len’s 95 year old mother was able to join us at the table for a little while and had us in stitches with some of her remarks. How lovely the day was. Thank you Lord.

Photobucket is holding all my photos from 2007-2015 hostage and they have blacked them all out. I’m slowly working at restoring my posts without their help. Such a tiresome bother!