Tis the season to be sneez'in

Achooooo! Flowers, shrubs & trees, OH MY

Finally, we are coming to the end of the blooming in SC. It was beautiful during the process but hard on many that have allergies. My hubby and one daughter seem to have it the worst in our family. Sarah has sneezed 40 times in a row, believe it or not. Her classmates counted.

Enjoy the beautiful weather and your gardens. The Dogwoods in bloom

The Bradford Pear trees

The Japanese Tulip tree

Pansies are at their peak and will be coming out next weekend. It gets too hot for them here.

Time Don't Run Out on Me

The title is from the song Ann Murray sings on her latest CD. Hubby and I saw her recently. It's her last concert tour. She's 63, I think, and getting ready to do other things back in Canada. Her daughter was with her and is featured on the CD doing a duet with her Mom. I've always loved her voice.

Anyway, back to the time thing. I thought I'd show a few more clocks of mine that keep me going and getting me wherever I need to be at any given moment. Although I have many more, I won't bore you with them for now, I promise.

Thanks for all the lovely comments on my blog recently. I hope you all had a restful, pleasant weekend. Hugs!

Remember the school house clocks? I just had to have 25 years ago.
The nautical one is in a room with my lighthouses.This is in the guest bath so they don't primp too long. (smile)This is in the powder room.This is in my kitchen. It's from Kirkland. I just love that store! See how my taste has changed over the years. (smile)

Clocks and More Clocks

I have about 20 clocks in my house, not counting the alarm clocks. No one has an excuse for being late. Here are just a few of them.

I inherited this first clock a couple of years ago from my aunt's estate. She was 87 yrs. old when she passed on. I was anxious to get it but disappointed when I realized that my uncle had taken the cuckoo out because it stopped working. (I think he tried to fix it but couldn't. )

When my Mom said I could have it, I knew I had to get it fixed.

She had traveled to Germany with a close friend more than 50 yrs. ago and brought it back.

When I was a small child I remember going for a visit and being intrigued by the little bird. In January I had the clock refurbished, so to speak. Now my grandchildren are enjoying it, especially the 1 year old who stops when he hears it and yells cuckoo, mimicking the bird.

This one is on an arm and has two faces high up an open shelf in our master bathroom.


This one sets in our bedroom sitting room.

This is in an upstairs hallway. I've had it about 30 years and my little bear collection is on it.

This is in a perfect little corner in the hallway of our great room. It chimes every 15 minutes and on the hour does the Westminster chimes . You can see it from every angle of the room as well as the kitchen.

Baby Dress

I haven't posted in a couple of days and thought I'd do a quick simple post today.

I thought of this little dress that a friend of my Mom's made for me when I was born. It's the only thing I have from infancy except for pictures that my Mom still has.

Being born in the early 50's in the hills of WV there wasn't a lot of financial resources but a lot of love and kindness that helped make up for that.

I was born just after midnight, with Dr. Puckett assisting. (Glad he was available)

The dress isn't much in it's simplicity but shows they used what they had to make it a little "fancy". I'm so glad my mother kept it.

The little gold bracelet hanging on the wood hanger came later in life and has my name engraved on it.

The pink trim is embroidery thread.

Our Downtown

We went downtown Sat. to the Artisphere. The Dogwood trees are in their glory right now.

We have a beautiful and unique park at the west end of town. Over the last 3 years it's been completely renovated. We have a new bridge over our waterfall that is suspended on just one side. People are flocking to it. The grounds are beautifully kept and they have all kinds of outdoor entertainment there.

We had a NY artist that painted with chalk on the sidewalk. He sprays it and it lasts up to a year, if you can believe it. They had to pressure wash last year's off so they could paint this years. They are so talented and amazing to watch. It takes up to 30 hours for them to complete the work. It's a three day event.

There was another artist's work that you may have seen via the internet. ( There is more than one artist that does this type of work.) He paints a portrait by splashing the paint, with his hands, on canvas that is sometimes rotating while music is playing. See below

The Dogwoods

The Park grounds

The bridge and waterfall The bridge when it was being built a few years ago


Artist splashing paint as the song The Green Beret plays and the final portrait of John Wayne that starred in the movie with the same title.

The artist doing chalk drawing. Isn't it amazing the talent that's out there.

P.S. I 'm sorry there is such a space before my comments appear. Does anyone know how to correct this??? Please let me know if you do. Thanks!

Sweet Husband

Fri. night my daughter and I went to see and hear Jon & Kate Gosselin from Jon & Kate plus Eight on the TLC channel. http://www.sixgosselins.com/Contact_us.html

They have a great testimony for the Lord. In case you are not familiar with them , they have 7 yr old twin girls and then her second pregnancy gave them septuplets. Whewwwww! That is sooooooo much for any family to handle yet they do cope and give praise to the Lord. You may not hear too much about that on their show because they have no control on how the station edits the final show segments.


Anyway, when I got home my sweet husband had these flowers on each step leading upstairs to our bedroom. He has done many wonderful impressive things over the almost 38 years we've been married-- but not this one. I was smiling ear to ear as I ascended the stairs and picked each one up. This card was in front of our bedroom door with the final flower, a long stemmed rose.
Mind you, he bought his bouquet and Rose, then took the bouquet apart and laid them all out on 16 stairs. I thought it was so sweet I'd share it with you.
I hope you had a wonderful, refreshing weekend and have a great week .
Talk to ya soon!

Show & Tell

I was in my office just finishing up a Bible Study on the Life of David for our ladies Bible Study.

I was thinking and looking around to see what I could do for show and tell Friday. Setting next to me is an old Library table that I found at yet another estate sale many, many years ago. We used it as a kitchen table at our previous house with the old china cabinet (from previous post).

Our youngest daughter threatened me not to get rid of it when we moved here. She would love to have it. She's going to have to wait a while longer, though (smile) . A friend of hers has one in their kitchen and they use an ice pick to carve visitors name into the wood. I couldn't stand the thought, so we've left ours as is. I'm going to have to have her sign a legal document not to use it for that after I'm gone. Not that I would know anyway but I could threaten to haunt her. (smile)

Well here is where we decided to use it at this house and keep it safe from Sarah.

A friend of mine made the curtains and decided to make chair covers for our old kitchen chairs. She even made them reversible . It doesn't hurt that she teaches home economics.

The drawers in the table are 2 1/2 ft. long. You have to be careful pulling them out.

Wordless Wednesday

It's been a bit cool here in the south the last couple of days. I had to bring my flowers into the garage at night. Things are about to change, though. The next few days should be in the upper 70's, which is the norm for mid April. I started to think of warm weather activities and longed for the family to all be together again. Here we are sailing in New Bern, NC, the birth place of Pepsi Cola and home town of writer Nicholas Sparks. It was a wonderful time.

Jonas

Look who made the cover of Parenting! (Smile) Just kidding!

This is Jonas in his Halloween costume and looking so cute with his Lion's costume, his big blue eyes so bright and those to die for eyelashes of his.
You can have fun with putting pics on this cover by using this site.

http://covermaker.parenting.com/pixels.php
Thanks to Harrington House for sharing the idea.

Show & Tell

Not knowing what to post today, I decided to feature another antique that I picked up at an estate sale about 20 years ago in MI. A friend of mine was handling the sale and gave me the heads up of what things were available. My sister and I were there bright and early the day of the sale and both of us got an old trunk.

I knew it was old I just didn't know how old till I got it home.

A friend was visiting one day and said, "You know you can tell the date of the trunk." She took me over to it and pointed to the hinge on it and there it was.

I took a close pic of it. I hope you can decipher some of it. It says Pat. March 1880.

I showed another lady after that how to find the date on hers. She also didn't know it was there. Hers said 1860. Wow, that's old!
Does anyone else out there have any old trunks to share with us?

The flowers on it are painted in blue.
These were trunks used for travel with comparments inside . The trunk is on wheels that are built into the bottom for easier movability. It has leather handles on each side to pull it with.

Can't you just imagine someone traveling with this 128 years ago. Perhaps overseas on an oceanliner???

Show & Tell

Here's another piece of furniture I purchased at an estate sale many, many years ago. Nothing has been done to the wood but I have covered the seat to match at least three other rooms over time. It's been a country blue and a cream and burgundy stripe over the years. This time we put it in our bedroom to have a place to rock our grand babies upstairs if need be.

It has the old springs or coils under it and some would say not as comfortable as the modern rockers but I love to rock in it. It's probably 70 or more years old. It sits in the sitting room of our bedroom