Well, it's back on the wagon for me!

Two posts in one day, amazing...lol!

Honestly, is there anyone who doesn't think they are fat? And with it being Monday, the true diet starter day, I crawled back on the wagon with the same efforts that were VERY successful for me last week. I was 'focused' (my new word for 'good') all last week but the weekend was a challenge...I know to be prepared next weekend.

Pizza Friday night, Mexican food with a dear friend on Saturday, Apple Crisp on Sunday. Ugh! One of the things I realized while scarfing down that pizza Friday night was that MY Crustless Skillet Pizza was SO much better than Pizza Hit Delivery!

So I made one today...sliced it and bagged it in meal size portions and popped it into the fridge.



I am Low-Carbing but not being crazy about it. I think we all have to find that happy medium of what really works for us so we CAN maintain our 'focus'. Here is the recipe from my personal cook book...

In a skillet over medium heat add...
2 Tablespoons Olive Oil
1/2 large onion chopped, simmer till tender
1/2 can (15 oz) black olives chopped or sliced...added to onions once they are soft.
1/2 can 8oz. Tomato Sauce (OR you could use any NON sugar based pizza/spag sauce)
Add to Tomato Sauce:
1 packet Nutrasweet or equivalent
1/4 teaspoon Italian mix herbs
1/8 teaspoon onion powder
1/8 teaspoon garlic powder
Pour Tomato Sauce mix over above ingredients then add..
Pepperoni, as much or little as you like, I pile it on.
Top with:
Mozzarella cheese and Mexican mix cheese...it melts so smoothly and not as greasy as cheddar, but I used cheddar today.

As this is melting, beat
8 eggs

Then take your spatula and pat down to make everything level, use a fork to make 8 or so small holes in the skillet mixture so the eggs can find their way to the bottom.

Now pour the eggs over the skillet mixture taking care to fill in the little holes...if this doesn't happen as nicely as you want it too, then lean the pan and let the eggs run under the skillet mixture while lifting the edges with a spatula.

Let it simmer for a few minutes. Some of the cheese will be melted and bubbbling. When the edges look like an omlette and most of the cheese is melting, then turn the broiler on low and slip the skillet inside the oven. Keep a watch until the top of the Pizza is browned to your liking.

I may put a protector over my skillet handle depending on which skillet I use, so think if your handle needs a cover.

Remove from the broiler, take a photo, slice into 4 or 6 pieces, depending on how much you want, place on your Royal Winton Pastelware trimmed in gold, grab your gold flatware, take another photo, then enjoy! Truthfully, when no one is looking I throw it on a paper plate and eat with a plastic fork...lol!



There are quality Carbs in this, about 30 carbs in the whole thing. So, 7.5 per serving. 4 servings.

I hope you enjoy this like I do.

Happy day,
Melissa

Yummy! ....and about sharing that poetry... And LOOSING

Last week I strolled over to Daisy Cottage where she never fails to delight readers with photos of her lovely cottage and decorating and recipes. And indeed that day she had posted a recipe for an Apple Crisp that seemed like the Perfect way to get the Scent of Fall into my home.

So it was that on Sunday morning after Mr. Rose had taken me to breakfast and a trip to the grocery store, I pulled out my old Corning ware casserole and made that very Apple Crisp. I first put down the canned Comstock apples, then sprinkled heavily with cinnamon, then the sugar, and because I couldn't find the Jiffy cake mix, I used half a Betty Crocker (pudding in the mix) yellow cake mix, then lavished it all with butter. baked for 50 minutes, because my younger males don't eat nuts. It smelled heavenly cooking!



Served up on my Fallish snack set with Roses and my gold flatware, with half-n-half in my coffee, it was Total Indulgence! And Delicious! I told Mr. Rose if he found me passed out in a Diabetic comma it is because I just needed more Apple Crisp...lol!



It was SO YUMMY!! Thanks Kim!

*****
I also wanted to say thank you for your sweet comments on my blog. It is so fun to visit with each of you! I feel like you dropped by my house for a quick 'hello'. As to sharing my poetry in the last blog...

I can't share any of my poetry. As a teen in high school is was like bearing my soul! I would only share with those who wrote poetry. They were literary friends, I suppose. And I kept it all in a red pocket paper folder buried in a drawer in my desk. It was safe there. When I transfered universities I took that folder, bulging and in need of tidying up, to my new place. That semester I took First Aid...I think it was the only class available and I had to have it for some strange reason. Anyway, after the semester was over I did the 'trash-thing'...threw away my boyfriend (should have left him in the trash but that damn telephone did me in), threw away all my papers and syllabi, all the old notebooks, and my First Aid folder that happened to be in a Red paper pocket folder.

My poetry folder went back in my desk at home, not to be reviewed for 18 months.

Then, in my new apartment with my first job and a new desk to arrange in a second bedroom I retrieved the poetry folder and sat in my bean bag chair in a little corner perfectly laid out for reading and opened the folder to find it was my First Aid folder, not my poetry folder. I was devastated! I tore through everything and the reality was simple. All my poetry and the poetry of friends was in a trash pile somewhere along with my papers and syllabi. I haven't written poetry since. It was a sudden stop at the end of a very fast ride.

Now let me tell you one other little story. YEARS ago my aunt realized she would never have a certain topaz placed in a setting. It had been given to her by her X husband and she was married now to my uncle. On my 16th birthday, she gave me that stone. It was huge and clear and was my birthstone and one day....I could have it set in a beautiful mounting.

NOT!

One day I would have an old box from my old days with stuff I never went through. That day I would be moving. The men had packed up our house and were pulling out and the new owners of our house had arrived to take possession. I watched my husband drag that box to the street where a small pile of trash would be picked up the next morning. Of course you know what was in that box.

If I had the choice of having one of the two back I would go with the poetry.

Oh well, staying detached is best. We all loose small pieces of ourselves in this life. Wouldn't it be grand if we could loose weight as carelessly as I tossed those items in the trash? LOL!

Hugs to each of you,
Melissa

The Book Nook

That's what I'd call it if I had a bookstore. It would look like that store featured in "You've Got Mail" with Meg Ryan and Tom Hanks...well, that is what the front would look like, all quaint and peaceful. In back, it would be the size of Amazon with escalators and room upon room where hundreds upon hundreds of holograms would play like movies and you could jump in and BE Princess Leia if you wanted to, or watch The Velveteen Rabbit exactly as you imagined it to be...or dig in the garden or make that mad plunge down the water fall slide on the cover of the Travel Magazine.

I had a similar experience at school one semester. No, not a holographic interactive room at The Book Nook but a job where I worked a few hours a week for the library. It was quite a boring tedious job that I was totally unsuited for.



Eight years before my arrival, this university had built a huge new library of limestone and glass (it has since been added and added onto) and Hundreds and Hundreds of boxes were still stored up in the attic. Books needed to be accounted for and properly shelved.

My job was to take a LONG list of books up to the attic and search for them in the hundreds of boxes that literally WERE the floor of the attic...This was my first experience at finding a needle in a haystack.

There was no AC up there, so it was hot and dusty and I hardly knew where to begin. I opened and pulled books from one box then another and another hoping to find just ONE book on the list. I stumbled across MANY interesting looking old books. Not at all like the books we have marketed to us today.




These books were OLD in caparison.



In high school I wrote poetry and shared it with friends and read their poetry. I kept a folder with all the aquired poetry in a drawer in my white French provincial desk which sat on my pink carpet beside my white bean bag chair. I would spend hours sifting through the writings of myself and others. So when I pulled an old book of poetry from one of those dusty boxes up in that huge attic I couldn't resist the urge to carefully sift through the fragile pages.

The Copyrights were OLD


The pages looked to have been individually cut and were not uniform at all. There were additions to the book, what look like magazine articles clipped and glued in.


There are handwritten details in pencil and another 'tip in'...I believe that is what it's called.

This tip in was added from a change Ms. Teasdale made in '31 and lays over the original printed page.



I do not know if the book dates to the 1920 printing of the 1907 copyright or if the book was printed in the 1930s after the publisher added the above tip in dated Sept 23 '31 in what appears to be a handwritten update by Ms. Teasdale. Perhaps someone reading this can tell me. Perhaps the tip in was added by the consumer.

Ms. Teasdale was Victorian in her roots, married at the age of 30, divorced at the age of 45. In 1918, she received the Columbia University Poetry Society prize (the forerunner of the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry) and the annual prize of the Poetry Society of America for her volume, Love Songs. And she quietly ended her life in 1933 one January day by ingesting an over dose and taking to her bathtub for a long soak. She was 48. (Wikpedia.com) There are more details of her life and social experiences available online.

It has been a long time since I crawled around in that attic looking for books and sneezing from the dust. I still love looking at the pages of these old Teasdale poetry books, reading her spirited, at times biting, poetry and thinking of the life lead by Ms. Teasdale. I had promised a confession in this blog but I am refraining. Perhaps you can fill that in for me. :)

Thank you for visiting my blog today.

I am off to the Thrift Store to see what I need that I don't know yet...lol!

Have a marvelous weekend!

Cottage blessings,
Melissa

The Anticipated Freshness of Fall

Although temps are still in the 90s, I have started decorating for Fall. I am taking a departure from my usual pale tones and decorating with rich Fall tones of cream, brown, pumpkin, and burgundy. These colors add so much punch and a crispness that says Fall to me.

One of the nicest people gave me an antique Armoire from England. It has amazing carved wood, small grooves, is narrow and perfect for my Dining Area. I painted it a palest green, but it looks white giving a variety of whites to my Gathering Areas.



The table beside the armoire is a curbside find. It has pretty lines and is so chippy! You can see a pink layer of paint under the white layer. I just love it because I can put a plate stand on it with pies for the holidays and use it for serving. Most of the time I have a mirror on top with a crystal service on top to magnify the reflection and with this arrangement I have a crystal pedestal cake plate holding a large cherry flavored candle and the Fall arrangement under the cake plate was .50 at the Thrift store...I LOVE the Thrift Store!



On top of the armoire is a cherished piece of Stained Glass from an old building in Decatur, TX. The flash of the camera really brings out the texture of the glass, It seemed the perfect backdrop for the candles and Fall arrangement...another Thrifts Store find for about $4.



The candlesticks are from my Thrift Shopping Mom, she can find amazing things and knows where all the haunts in Dallas are. She gave me the bobeches draped with prisms for my anniversary one year.



This is a metal Tussie Mussie a friend gave me years ago, it had a beautiful sweet fresh flower bouquet. I love the Babbles and Beads that dangle at the bottom and have added a small fall floral. You can also see more of the texture of this armoire.

I left all the original knobs and details because I just love old things and the way they were crafted. You can see in this photo the details of the hammered metal ring to open the door and the little piece of wood to secure it's closure...I love these details.



On the inside there is a shelf and 5 hooks for hanging clothing. Right now it is full of my cookbooks and extra paper towels. One day soon...there will be jackets and umbrellas hanging on the hooks.

Thanks for sharing a piece of my home and my delight for the upcoming Fall!

Cottage blessings,
Melissa

The Shabby Rabbit

They first visited my neighbor up the street, I could see them from my front window. Beautiful and white, they didn't look like the others. Of course we hadn't seen the others until the cats began disappearing one by one.

So this morning, my hubby calls me to the back yard. And there was one of the Sweet Shabby Rabbits. He was sniffing my Rosemary politely not eating it in front of me.

We talked to him and he nodded in complete understanding. He then hopped a little further along to feast on some grass.



After making omelettes, I peeked out the kitchen window and The Shabby Rabbit was relaxing in the shade of the Photenias.



Isn't he pretty? And so Shabby Chic with that snow white coat and pink eyes!

Have a Hopping Hump Day!
Melissa

UPDATE: ****************

Apparently the rabbit is domesticated. Here is a photo of my son offering him a carrot. Silly rabbit, wouldn't eat the one gently tossed to him so as not to scare him away from good food. But, he did allow my son to get closer and immediately began chipping away at the carrots offered by hand.



Of course my son is worried about the little thing, understandably. So, I'll buy rabbit feed at Petco for him and make him a shaved pine bed under the shrubs to stay warm in the winter. I know they, no sign of his partner, were out on Aug. 11th. They have weathered some intense heat if they were kept inside. I think perhaps they were outdoor bunnies that were let out of the backyard. Seeing the cats have all been poisoned (our was) or disappeared...and I mean ALL of them, the rabbit should be safe.

Nope, we won't bring him in. I'm done with inside animals...the males are lucky they still live inside...lol!

Melissa

A Fun Fall Swap

My son handed me an envelope from the mail. It was THE envelope...the Embellishments Swap for use in Crazy Quilting projects. And I must admit, I felt like a kid at Christmas!

It all started when I saw this adorable Cell Phone carrier Kay made...check it out here

Isn't it pretty? I really liked the fibers she used as well as the beads and trims and traditional embroidery. Kay wanted to try some ribbon embroidery and I wanted to play with some of the fibers, so we arranged a swap.

She put each of her fibers and embellishments in little plastic bags...I on the other hand, put it all in one baggie...lol!

It totally was more than I imagined!



She sent White, Pink and a lovely Yellow Green fiber. Two white Lacey trims, Buttons that are shimmering white and interesting...one has the holes at the top rather than the center.

There is a Coffee/Toffee/Cream fiber that will become a spider, I think...because every crazy quilt has to have a spider and a web.



There is a Purple and a Gold Tab of some kind, I will have to make a visit to my quilt shop for ideas on using those...it will be fun.

Then there is an amazing Aqua fiber that is so gorgeous, a Royal Blue and a Lavender fiber and three or four pretty Flower Power flowers in the perfect Pink shade! I can't wait to play with all these Goodies!



Kay, thank you! You really rounded out my Stash for Crazy Quilting with Beautiful Embellishments and I appreciate it so much. Melissa

Last week before school starts...

And I knew my guys would want to call for delivery if I didn't head 'em off at the pass. You may remember I nabbed a pizza pan at the Thrift store last week. So today, I wanted to use it. You probably have a fabulous recipe for dough and sauce that you love. Pizza is a personal expression and an art, once you find what works for you, it's wonderful!

But today, I took the easy way out. I had pizza dough in a can from using coupons last week, love that! So that is what I used rather than slinging dough and dragging out the Mixer.

Well, it can be an ordeal but so worth it!

First I drag everything out on the counter. Rub Olive Oil on the pan real good. Then coax that square strange dough into a circle or put it on a cookie sheet.

Then open a small can of tomato paste and add: onion powder to taste, 1 T brown sugar, 1 teaspoon white sugar...mix with about 3T water and stir until blended. Then put about half of the tomato paste mixture in the center of the pizza dough and whirl it around with the back of a spoon till it looks well coated. You can add more or less to your family's taste for sauce.

Preheat oven to 400*



This is when I throw on the ingredients. Today, it was just pepperoni.



Now take mozzarella cheese sticks and slice them in half long ways and lay them end to end about 1/2 from the edge of the pizza. Then fold over the outside edge of the dough and ingredients over top of the cheese sticks. Press down just a little to make sure the dough covers the cheese sticks.

Sprinkle the top with a couple handsful of mozzarella shredded cheese. On top of that, sprinkle the shredded cheese blend for Mexican foods. Those cheeses melt so nicely and add a bit of color to the pizza.



Then sprinkle Olive Oil lightly over the whole Pizza, dust with onion powder and garlic granules (or powder). Then with you fingers, rub the top of the crust with a little sauce and pour olive oil into your hands and rub over the edges until you have a light coat of Olive Oil on the crust.

Pop it into your oven for 17 minutes at 400*...you can adjust the time as needed to produce a brown crust and simmering cheese. While the first one is cooking I usually make the next one and occasionally I'll make a 3rd for the freezer or for late night snacks during the week. I pile on the ingredients because I want 2 pizzas to fill up these males I live with. And I pocket the $$ difference between ordering out and cooking these at home.



Slice and enjoy with a salad and iced tea.

Have a great week Y'all!
Melissa

Friday Night dinner, faster than Delivered Pizza!

Ok, let me preface this post by saying I am a reformed Spendaholic. For a Spendaholic Friday night means Pizza or dining out...and it continues through the weekend, right?

Well, several years ago I opted out of the Spendy Club and acquired Frugal habits. For one full year I bought Nothing for myself or my house. That meant no more mindless shopping on Sunday afternoons or Saturday mornings at Starbucks. Can you imagine? LOL! Friends thought I'd lost my mind. Maybe I did. *shrug* But I found a simple path and easy living followed thereafter.

One of the many things I had to do was cook. Yep, actually use that tiny kitchen that came with the house. It was scary because I knew only 3 meals I could cook for my family and one of those meals was Stew and Cornbread.



Lots changed during that Frugal year. I learned so much! Saved so much! And now I have 26 meals my family will eat without whining. That says a lot for kids raised on Delivery, Carry Out or Dine In foods. I know, it wasn't healthy, it wasn't so many things, but it WAS convenient! :) These days I can usually have dinner ready in less than 15-20 minutes. I am almost smug about it because I am ready to make what ever the guys want for dinner and I don't dread that question 'what's for dinner?'.

Of the many Frugal things I learned was to cook most of my meats in advance. Much like Once A Month cooking but only the meats. So I typically cook ahead ground beef and bone in chicken breasts. I let em cool and place meal size portions in freezer bags, then lay them flat and stack them in my side by side.

Today, I cleaned and did some wash, mostly I chatted with friends and read blogs. Then tonight, in about 20 minutes I made that stew and cornbread. I just threw in the meat I cooked earlier, chopped some potatoes, added veggies, seasonings and let it cook while I cleaned the kitchen and made corn bread. And I thought back over those times when I was tired of being frugal and tired of cleaning my own house and remembered a lovely little statement by a very wise 80+ something woman.

Her comment to us girls whining about and struggling with cooking from scratch on a daily basis was: "Girls, in my day when we cooked from scratch we had to kill the chicken first." That pretty well put it all in perspective...LOL!

I think about that wise woman when a couple times a month I cook up my meats while I do laundry or when I make my own pizza dough and I think how very blessed I am to have a nice cook top to cook on and don't have to round up the wood to start it. I don't have to do much more than open cans, boil rice or pastas, tear lettuce a couple times a week and throw my dishes in the pretty white box to be cleaned.

As it turned out, I didn't buy a thing for myself, except underwear and VERY few clothes for 3 years. I didn't go to Hobby Lobby except to buy paints to sell my painted goods on ebay. And I didn't go Thrifting again till three weeks ago.

I am proud to have taken that Frugal challenge WAY back then. Proud I hung in there and made it work for my family. Tonight my hubby will enjoy coming home to a nice Jethro bowl of homemade stew and cornbread and I can take that $35 I would have spent on pizza and throw it into my Christmas fund. Or sneak some of it into my purse for next week when I hit the Thrift Stores again.

Cheers!
Melissa

A Lovely Wednesday Morning

Hubby and I met my parents for breakfast this morning. It was such a great way to start the day! Hubby headed off to work and my parents and I took off for the Thrift stores. The first one didn't have anything new but I nabbed a restaurant style pizza pan.

At the second store, mom handled me a Tall Vintage White Enamel Pitcher. It was beautifully chipped and had just been put on the $1.97 aisle...it became mine!
Soon as we got home I went out back to clip a few stalks off the Red Tip Photenias. Then I remembered a big tray from the flea market a couple years ago, so it was turned upside down and the pitcher looks crisp and uncluttered on the table alone. I love that sparser look, it balances the clutter on the piano (see last entry).



On that same aisle there was a large old plater with scalloped edges. The transfer wear was missing in a few places but it was just what I was looking for to use over the Holidays when I need that extra platter for serving.

I have a Ritual...

I have ONE Ritual that occurs each year. It could be called Hibernating or Denial, doesn't matter either way, it just happens! Usually it begins in August. When the heat and humidity is so oppressive. And it begins with the thought of Christmas.

I begin doing this 'nesting' thing with a twist. I do the Spring Cleaning routine first. Then organize something new or reorganize something 'they' have gotten into and not returned to my precise obsessive compulsive state of being. They being the males. Males don't see things the way we do. They don't see at all! They have other gifts.

After cleaning and reorganize everything, I draw the blinds.

Now, I hate darkness. It isn't comforting to me, it feels like I'm trapped. So, during the normal course of the spring summer I open the West facing windows in the morning and close the East Facing windows at night. Then about 1pm. I close the West facing windows and open the East facing windows. None the less, come August I pull all the blinds and don't open them at all. Then out comes the Hot Tea...and the quilts. And the lights are kept very low.

A friend visiting walked into my home late one summer and said: "I can't see!" I said, "You'll adjust, give it a moment." And she did. The blinding light is another thing I avoid at all costs, thus the closed blinds. We sat with two small lamps glowing in the background and indeed the living room was cave like and cool. She passed on my offer of hot cinnamon apple tea. I wasn't offended.

A week or so later my best friend Dee comes over. She lives on the crisp edge of Reality most of the time. Rather than declining my hot tea offer she was aghast. "It's 100* out there, I want ICED tea!" I was offended.

She had shattered my cool cave-like abode with her Sensibility. I gave her my iciest glare for thwarting my attempt at making my reality a crisp fall day and thus...she could make her own iced tea!

It is during these moments of abject denial that I plot my Christmas decor, luncheon plans, Christmas tree placement and decide my Mantle decor that will easily switch from Fall with burgundies and peach tones to burgundies and pink tones. At this time I make the lists of things to pick up for gifts. I think about those Holiday Treats and Trays to have on hand for visitors. And will pull out my old magazine Holiday issues to peruse and think of the lovely mulled cider we will drink, the potpourri that will linger in the air and the twinkling magical lights we'll spread about the house.

And that is how I endure summer's unforgiving heat...with the knowledge that there truly will be Fall's crisp morning breeze, a fireplace to snuggle up to on a cool evening and the heart warming feelings that arrive about October 15th. That is when my Holiday begins, October 15th. My dear dad's birthday. I bring out the Fall decor for dressing the dining table and he goes on and on about how proud he is my home reflects who I am. What a sweetheart he is!

These days Dad can no longer put those words together as he looks around the gathering areas of my home. He tries, struggling for the words but I know what he is saying...he tears up a bit, slaps his hand to his heart and shakes his head once or twice while looking around the room and it is as though he is seeing my home for the first time...and he is pleased my life turned out well. And I don't want him thinking otherwise.

My dad has dementia, bless his heart. I told him years ago that when he no longer recognized me we would talk about his amazingly fabulous daughter. We laughed then. And I thank God today that I haven't yet needed to tell him how wonderful she is.

So, in reality, this Denial or Hibernating is as much a hope for tomorrow as it is a recognition of the blessings of today.

Won't you join me for a moment? Let's select our favorite hot tea and put the pot on to simmer. Let's grab those Holidays decorating magazines from the past and dream of what could be, make notes of things to do and count our blessings together.

Warmest regards,
Melissa

Roses...what else could there be?

Well, that is the way most of us Shabby Romantic Cottage Chic decorators think, isn't it? We love to surround ourselves with roses! Whether you abide in a Cozy Studio in the City; a Precious Cottage so dear…a Sprawling Country Ranch or perhaps the Storied Homes of the Suburbs, bottom line is you can’t Not be surrounded by these gorgeous beauties!

On plates, tea cups, towels, table-cloths, trays...yard-longs, still lifes and a dining room table center piece. Roses, Roses Roses! The petals are Unbelievable and SO soft!! When you look at a Rose in the sun, do you notice the prism like sparkle of the petals? The texture is amazing!

They are simply a Requirement in life!

I pass them in the grocery store and can’t continue on without an indulgence of their scent. The fragrance is heady and invokes memories and wonder. All the 'what if' thoughts race through my head. Can you take in the fragrance of that shimmering petal and not long to sit on a covered porch, with a porch swing?

Wouldn’t you have Texas Iced Tea in your hands or Lemonade with Mint or Lavender?

In my mind’s eye, the planks beneath my feet are a faded but well kept country blue, I can hear the hollow clap of a friends tennis shoes and feel the smile before I even look up to her face.

And I relish that comforting hug and the chatter of small talk as I hand her the glass of refreshment, readied in anticipation of her visit.

My swing would be White wood and there would be big porch pillows that don't match, but then again, they do...to sit on or cuddle up to. And no one would wonder how much those pillows cost because the value of them would never exceed the value of that moment with a friend, new or old.

Those pillows might have seen last night’s storm and taken a little toss in the dryer before being returned to the porch swing this morning. And my friend and I would laugh and share, and smile...leaving the realities of this world on the 'other side' of that picket fence.

We would step inside once the sun tipped over the roof…because shade or not, it is hot in Texas. The hardwoods would creak occasionally as we made our way to the far back of the house where we would sit in the bay window at an old Vintage table that slightly tilted North and sported a crisp Vintage White table cloth with a couple non-descript spots on it.

My Yellow Organza placemats and linen napkins would be a subtle contrast but there because I just love that they are hand finished and have a Yellow Rose in the corners. And my Grandmother’s Rose pitcher would hold honeysuckle interspersed with the freshest rose blooms from along the back fence. A small lady bug would invariably make her way to the top of the honey suckle leaves.

I’d pull out the fridge a clear glass pitcher holding the lemons and ice and more sweet tea and my friend would refill our glasses and she would talk non-stop and it would be the loveliest sound! I would bring the two cantaloupe halves out of the fridge, filled with a chunky chicken salad with grapes and walnuts and a little poppy seed dressing and the Best Cheddar Bread muffins would be buttered…and the conversation would never end, the green grass under the shade of old Oak Trees would be a reminder that even in the height of summer, we endure…as we endure life’s less comfortable moments.

And I would ever hold dear that moment in time when the conversation was about everything and nothing and I had the good sense to realize just how blessed I am. rgb(255, 153, 255);">

And then…I would travel on to the frozen food aisle to pick up a carton of Blue Bell and whatever else was on my list…and think about that fabulous fragrance, that promising day dream and count my blessings.

Have a great weekend Y’all!

My Roses and Decals

Spring is here in full bloom...

March 11, 2007

We had my parents up for Brunch today...it's always nice when they are here. Dad eats well, enjoys the boys and the cats and then wants to leave. LOL! Mom and I talk as fast as we can in hopes of getting it all said before Dad insists on leaving. And of course, we never get it all said...lol!

I tried out a recipe from IronChef on FoodTV and it was a spin on the simple peanut butter and jelly sandwich morphed to french toast and drizzled with warm grape jelly. It was great!

Later in the day after Mom and Dad left, Hubby cooked steaks and hot dogs on the grill, it was fabulous outside, breezy; just a great relaxing day.

I have some different things going on this week. Need to finish painting the dining room chairs white so we can have a pretty table for Easter lunch. I've got some other things going on but most exciting is my decals I'll be putting on ebay the end of March.

I LOVE these decals!! They were taken from my artwork ...different things I painted and turned over to a graphics person to make into decorative elements that are fast and most of all FUN to use! More on that later...Daylight Saving time will have me moaning at 6am tomorrow, so I'm headed for some Zzzz.




Have a great week!
Cottage