A Long Time Friendship

Hi Everyone!  This is Ceekay guest blogging here at A Hint of Home.  Ro and I thought that you might get a kick out of hearing about our friendship.

Ro and I grew up attending the same church in Warren, Michigan.  I tease her now and tell her we were not friends then because we were in different classes.  She and Tom were married in 1970 and my hubby and I were married in 1973.

Ro and Tom have always been into hospitality and so they invited us, a newly wed couple to their home after church one evening.  Ro had such a darling little home and I wanted to start fixing up our apartment.  We just hit it off and our friendship began.  Ro was pregnant with her first child.  When their daughter was little, a few times my husband and I would watch Andrea.  We would pretend she was our little girl!

We have so many fun memories.  One that we always still laugh at is one day Tom wanted to put up a swing set for the girls. "Come over and we will put the set together in an hour or so, and then we will grill and play games."  Well hours later they were still working on the swing set, we put the headlights on the car to see with!!

Several years later Tom and Ro moved to South Carolina.  My husband and I moved to Wisconsin.  We didn't see each other for years.  But we would call each other!  Oh, there was no free long distance then.  I would save change so I could give it to my husband to help pay the phone bills.  He would say, "write a letter!".  That isn't the same thing!!

Oh, we have had such wonderful times together.  Now that the kids are grown we can travel a little bit more and have enjoyed seeing so many things together.  Here are just a few of those pictures.

This is visiting the Hunley exhibit.  I had just finished chemo.

Boone plantation 2007.

Paula Deen's restaurant.

Verde Canyon Railroad 2009.

This is this week at the Biltmore Estate

and at Mast General Store in Valle Crucis, NC.  We are enjoying our time together so much!  We just can't get everything in we want to do!

There is nothing like the memories girlfriends can share over a lifetime!!

HE IS RISENI hope you all are enjoying this Lord's Day celebrating the resurrection of Christ with family and friends.

We are heading to church and then having family over for dinner with my closest friend Ceekay,

who is visiting from AZ.

I 'm taking a little blog break this week while she and I enjoy our special time together.

Wishing you all a Blessed Easter!

Blind Trust

My hubby took a bench, that we did not want any more, over to my daughter's house the other day! Our 4 yr. old grandson loves any time he can spend with his Papa. So out the door he came to see him.
Papa saw a caterpillar on the porch and told Jonas to pick it up and that it wouldn't hurt him. Then funny Papa said, "Put it on your nose, Jonas." ( Never believing that he would.) When Jonas put his little hand up to his nose his mother ran for the camera and starting snapping. lol
The caterpillar immediately crawled from his hand to his nose and kept moving! Jonas never wavered! He was going to see how far it would crawl, I guess. lol

He was enjoying every minute of it.

I hope this made you smile today!

Loving hearing from you!

Metamorphosis of Front Yard

The pansies had started to wane and had seen better days. We have terribly hard red clay here in the south which makes it hard for plants to do their best. Hubby decided to take up the old mulch and some red clay and put better soil down for the Spring and summer plants.

I mean a truck load. This is just the beginning of it.

This is the new soil and a few plants that were added.

The new mulch was delivered last Tues. It really does help keep moisture to the plants when it's in the 90's or 100's here.

Things just have to grow now! The hard work, thanks to DH is done.

This is between our garage doors.

This is the finished job .  Now we wait for them to grow.  I'll keep you posted!

Spring Tablescape

We were traveling back from Atlanta a couple of wks. ago and stopped at a Cracker Barrel for lunch. I saw these cute sunflower plates and brought a few home with me.

I already had the white and green plates. The white one are Jaclyn Smith from K-Mart and the green ones came from Old Time Pottery. These little whimsical sunflowers just added to the theme. They look so happy, don't they?

I picked up a few of these fingertip towels at Kohl's, to use as napkins. They were on sale and with a coupon to boot, I couldn't pass them up! The napkin rings came from Pier One.

The Beehive candle is an adorable gift from my friend Ceekay!

Sunflowers, Gerber daisies, and Honey Bees all scream warm weather is here! lol

A beehive honey jar and a little bee tea diffuser , I've had a long time.

Ceekay and her hubby sent these wonderful teas in a sweet "hatbox" to me for Christmas.

Click to enlarge any pic.

I'm linking up to Susan for Tablescape Thursday. Please stop over to her amazing blog and see many other tablescapes.

Thanks for looking at my Spring time table! I appreciate each one of your comments.

Hope you're having a good week!

Spring Cleaning a Planting

This is what's been happening around our house. It's planting time! We are have this awful red clay to contend with here in the south. It makes it hard for plants to grow in it. Hubby got tired of this and decided to dig areas of it up and replace with good soil. ( At lease where new plants were going to be plabnted.) What a mess!

Good soil is down and ready to plant the annuals. Finally some color after the long winter.

I'll be sure to show you after pics when it's all done.

This is our laundry room. It's a separate room, no passing through it to get to the garage. No one ever sees it except hubby and me. But......I knew what was lurking in there...hiding under those two machines. lol I couldn't stand it any longer....

I can't believe I'm going to show you this. You may want to close your eyes. Here's goes! Isn't it gross???

I got hubby to pull both machines out so I could clean under them. Now that is much better, don't you think!

On to the next project I needed help with. We have 15 foot ceilings in our master bathroom, and one wall has an open shelf. Even with the six ft. ladder it's hard for me at 5' 1" to reach and clean all the items up there.

Look how dusty this arrangement is!

It looks like hubby is doing all the work and I just take pictures. lol Not really though. I'm cleaning all the items he hands me and then I give them back to him.

All clean and back together. Much better!

We've gone through six room from top to bottom so far and making head way outside, too! Whew, I'm tired just writing it. Many more rooms to go but not sure when I'll get to them because Ceekay from Thinkin' of Home is coming next week and I have to save some strength cuz.. we want to have time to party!! lol

What's happening at your house?

Pancake Breakfast

I decided to make a wonderful pancake recipe that we were served at a B&B in NC a few years ago. I'll explain more on that a little later in the post. Anyway, I thought I'd do a little "Islandscape" and join Susan @ Between Naps on the Porch for Tablescape Thursday. I'm seeing spots, are you?

Just a fun little breakfast for the two of us!

We usually sit at the island for breakfast and look out this window for the entertainment that our little birdies give us. The other day we saw, for the first time, Goldfinches at our finch feeder. (click to enlarge) There were six at one time but by the time I got the camera a few had flown away.

Sometimes we see these big guys and they scare away the little ones. lol Don't miss the Bluejay on the fence to the right. I didn't think I would enjoy watching the birds as much as I do but I really am hooked now.

Back to the breakfast......I thought I would share the recipe for the Multigrain Pancakes for those who might be interested. (It's at the end of post) These are the dry ingredients needed. You need corn meal, white flour, whole wheat flour, oats, baking powder and soda.

I store them in an air-tight container. You can then measure out a cup as needed. You will get many servings from this container.

Mix well.

The liquid ingredients plus brown sugar. Measurements are below.

Mix well.

Add dry ingredients and mix.

I recommend using this maple syrup combo on the pancakes. You won't be sorry! You need Maple syrup, vanilla, orange juice, and orange zest. Any other flavored syrup works as well. Heat till warm.

What's pancakes without warm, crisp bacon. Yum!I put nuts in the batter this morning because hubby loves them. You can add fruit, such as blueberries or stawberries if desired. They are wonderful just plain!

They will be more golden because of the whole wheat and brown sugar.

This recipe is from the Baird House Bed and Breakfast. Dee Dee is the owner and cook. She was asked by so many guests for her many wonderful recipes that she finally published a cookbook. Yeah for us!

I have used many of them and they are always a hit!

I'm joing Michael Lee @Designs by Gollum for Foodie Friday. Be sure to visit both of the blogs mentioned today but lots of inspiration. They both have lovely blogs!

Thanks for taking the time to stop by and say hello. I appreciated each visit!