Views from the Country

I often try to take pictures of things while riding in the car. Its hard to get ones that aren't too blurry, but here's a sample of a few taken the other day while hubby was driving.

I thought this one was interesting because of the neglected home and the power pole in the rear view mirror. Creepy. You can tell the house had been painted not too many years ago, but had been let grow up with weeds and small trees.



A close up:



Wouldn't it be a beautiful home if it were remodeled and fixed up?

Just for fun I played around with it with the Picnik website. Picnik is closing its site, so its totally free until some time in April.



A barn:



Another old smaller home:



There are hundreds of abandoned homes in the country around where I live.

But, this old house has been taken great care of! I call it the Red Roof Inn:



Happy Tuesday!

Debbie J.

Around the Yard

Saturday was a beautiful, warm day so I took advantage of another unexpected gift from God and looked for interesting or colorful things in the yard. I found some things that most people may not even notice if they had walked right by them.

Would you have taken notice of these things?

Around the House

We've only used the gas logs a few times this winter. They came in really handy a couple of weeks ago when the power was out for several hours. Even without its fan running we were toasty warm.

We heat the house primarily with electric heat and use the gas logs as back up or to supplement the electric heat on a very cold day. With the mild winter we've had the electric bill has been much lower. We haven't had the gas tank filled at all, but we still got a bill for $75.00 for tank rent. Evidently our contract says that if we don't use a certain amount of gas they can bill us for rent. $75.00 is much better than the bill would have been if the winter had been severe!

We bought our gas logs from the clearance room at a furniture store when we first moved into the farmhouse. It was a good deal and I'm glad we have them. Now, if gas prices weren't so high!




This is the view from the little couch I sit on while reading or watching tv. I've accumulated quite a stack of library books. By seeing what type of books I check out from the library you can tell what interests me at the moment. This current stack include the subjects of digital photography, crocheting, quilting(of course), a weight loss book, a cook book, house decorating, and gardening. I seldom get a fiction book because even though I would love to sit down and read a novel, I just don't have time. The nonfiction ones can be looked at in the minutes I have here and there and I am always learning something.

The books in the middle of the ottoman are Bibles and other inspirational or Bible study books. The magazines on the far right are Country Living, Fitness, Better Homes and Gardens and House Beautiful. All of those subscriptions I got free using My Coke Rewards points. I save the codes off the cardboard cartons at work and my hubby brings home caps all the time from his work that he saves from being thrown in the trash by coworkers. I do love my Diet Coke, so we save the caps off the 2 liter ones we drink at home too.



Saturday I made a big bowl of chicken salad. My daughter laughed at me for taking a picture of this sandwich, but I was experimenting with taking some close up shots with my digital camera. My hubby brought the sandwich to me on one of the white plates I have been collecting. You can see his fingerprints in the bread from where he pressed it down. He brought it to me while I was working with the laptop on the couch.



Some sweet fingerprints from my little grandson. Its so hard to believe he will be going to kindergarten in a few months!



My Valentine's roses looked pretty with the bright light coming in the kitchen windows.







Happy Tuesday!

Debbie J.

My Mother's Room

Its been almost 3 months since my mother has been back to her home. Her room in the nursing home has become her home away from home. She even says she is going home when she is returning to the nursing home from dialysis or the hospital.

She still wants to go back to her real home though. Its not impossible that she will be able to go home, but its not happening too fast.

This week she spent one night and two days in the hospital to have the fistula put in her arm, which is the permanent access to be used for dialysis. She got along well with this, except for the expected soreness in her arm. She won't be able to do as much for a few days while the surgery heals.

Here are a few bright spots in her room.

A Bitterly Cold Weekend

Winter made its appearance know this weekend! A bitterly cold wind was responsible for our power being out for several hours... right before I was getting ready to do some sewing too!

I found some more color in the yard! At the end of the summer I placed this pot in an out of the way place hoping it would live through the winter. I forgot all about it , but accidentally caught a glimpse of it and ran out and snapped these pictures. I'm afraid the cold we had the last couple of days may have damaged it. I will check it out this morning to see how it fared.

Bits and Pieces of My Week

Beautiful Sunset



Perfectly sized portions



Co-Worker's New Shoes!



A Snack



Jacob's Ladder

Farmhouse Memories

Early one Sunday morning recently, we had a strange car drive up into the yard of the farmhouse. Out stepped a lovely retired couple. He had retired from the Secret Service after serving from Nixon to Clinton. She had raised their children.

A quest for memories of his childhood had brought them to our door. He grew up in our farmhouse!



We invited them in and the man looked around with wonder as he stated with tears in his eyes, "I wish Mama could see this!".

His mother's name was Lillian. Ms. Lillian was the person who planted the Crepe Myrtles, Quince bushes, Crinim Lillies, and other long lasting old fashioned plants in the yard.



He explained to us how the rooms were used when he and his two brothers were growing up and how things had been changed around.

Just imagine little boys playing in the farmhouse back in the 1940s!



I remembered this marble that appeared in the shade garden after a rain and thought about the little boys collecting marbles!



The small storage building behind our house was their smokehouse. There was no indoor bathroom, but I'm not sure where the outhouse was!

It turns out that the room we use as our tv/family/living room was a formal living room and our bedroom was the family room for him when growing up. I was happy to find out that Ms. Lillian had a quilting frame set up in what was their formal living room most of the time. When the boys came home from school and saw the ladies quilting they got excited because they knew there would be teacakes!



I love to learn about the people who have loved this home in the past. It's so nice to know I am following in the foot steps of ladies who loved the same things I do.... quilting, gardening, cooking.

Thank you Ms. Lillian and Ms. Albertha for paving the way...

A Southern February

An old fashioned Nandina bush, showing its winter colors.



I think one reason I like Winter so much is that it usually isn't all that severe in my neck of the woods. Every now and then we do have some snow and/or ice. Not this year! I know it's not over yet, but its not looking like any severely cold weather will hit.

If our winter has been this warm, I can only imagine how warm the summer will be....

So in an effort to enjoy the season, you know, "carpe diem", the hunt for color in the yard continues:

A Quince bush with the bare naked Crepe Myrtles in the background.



Up close...



Some purple...



In the summer a weed, in the winter, a flower!

This picture was taken on the spur of the moment as I was stepping over a brick wall at a church cemetery. I love the detail of the leaves. There is no telling how far these leaves traveled on the wind to land here because there is no oak tree nearby that I can remember.



One more close up of the Quince blooms!



Isn't it amazing that some kind of color can be found in the outdoors year round, if you take the time to look closely?