Thursday This & That

“Discontent is the penalty we must pay for being ungrateful for what we have.” - unknown

How true, how true! It's food for thought. We have so much in this country to be thankful for and yet we sometimes feel we are entitled to or need more.

I think of our ancestors and don't really understand how they managed to raise such large families, stayed together and seemed to be happy with life.

I love old family photos and the history they represent, don't you? This is my grandparents with their eight children. They sorta look like Bonnie and Clyde with a family. (smile) They married and lived in WV. My grandfather and his two brothers married three sisters from a nearby family. How's that for keeping it in the family??

The odd thing is in my generation, my sister and I married brothers.

My Mom only went to 8th grade because that is all the schooling there was. It ended there. I guess they thought that was all the kids needed to know and was time to go out in the world and make a living. She is with classmates in the pic below, second from left. Check out the little boy's leather hat with flaps.

My Mom is with her Dad riding a big white work horse. She was a young lady by now.

This is a picture of my grandparents in later years. Behind them, up on the hill, is the house I was born in. It was common practice back then for the Dr. to come to the house. Whew, at least I had a doctor. Believe it or not his name was Dr. Puckett.

My Mom eloped with my Dad at 21 yrs. old. She may have thought she was getting old. (smile)They are in the pic below with 4 of their children. The 5th was not thought of yet. I am in my father's arms. Notice my Mom has a baby in her's--my brother. We are not even a year apart. We laugh at birthday time when he turns the same age as I am for a few days.

I hope you enjoyed the show and are having a pleasant week.

Remember The Box

Remember a week or so ago I asked for advice on the box I had painted years ago for my husband's dresser? Well, there were several opinions. A few said they liked it as is and would mix the woods in the room with no problem. Others said paint it black or distress the edges after painting it and one said they loved red.
I thought about each of the ideas and was talking to Ceekay (thinking of home) about them. She brought up the idea of displaying it sitting up like a picture so it could be appreciated. After all, it wasn't being seen by many up on a chest in the bedroom. I couldn't even see it, unless I took it down to dust.
I didn't even know if it would stand up and knew it was too thick to go on any stand. Low and behold the little button knob holds it up like it is on a stand.
This is the box, in case some of you didn't see it before, and the following pics show it in it's new location.
Let me here your feedback on what you think, ok?
I didn't have a duck of any kind and walked into Ross the other day and it was the only one on a shelf staring right at me saying, "Here I am, take me home." I was so excited. (I had told Ceekay I was going to be on the lookout for one.) Anyway I got to the register and the checkout girl noticed a little chip on one wing. It would be facing away from people and not that noticeable so I asked for a discount and she gave me 30% off. I was thrilled and here it is.
I put it on a shelf between the two baby pictures that I recently posted about.
I hope you're having a fabulous week!

Hey What's Cooking

Welcome to Show & Tell.

I wasn't sure what I was going to post this week. Then I realized I haven't posted my kitchen before. I have seen some beautiful ones posted out there in blog land and thought I'd share some pictures of mine.

We have been blessed with some great buys from furniture stores in the area and in NC. We have never had a glass table top before but loved this one when we saw it. I picked the material for the seats.

I ordered extra material to have enough to cover the bar stools and add some to the window treatments that we already had up.

A closer look at the curtains.

The bar stools we picked up at a furniture repair shop in NC that does work for Broyhill and other companies then returns the items to the store to sell. Broyhill, themselves, sent us there to look at them and the man gave them to us for $50.00 each. NC is not too far from us to go for furniture and the deals are worth it. I came home and recovered them with the extra fabric.

We changed out the light fixtures from the ones that the builder installed.

The kitchen is open to the great room with a pass through counter that is great for serving on.

This is a view from great room into the kitchen.

This is one of my favorite pieces that is stored up above the cupboards. It belonged to my Grandmother who lived in WV and had cookies in it when we came to visit. My Mother let me bring it home a few years ago, since I had apples and fruit throughout my kitchen.

Ceekay has the same one from her Grandmother, which she posted recently.

When Ceekay was visiting last Oct. we took her and hubby to Paula Deen's and we both got an autographed pic of her restaurant.

Thanks for visiting today. Have a fun, relaxing weekend!

Lawn Ornaments

I was out weeding the new section of trees and flowers that we installed a few wks. ago and noticed some of my lawn ornaments had taken a real beating from the 98 to 100 degree sunny days here in the deep south. I decided I would put a fresh coat of paint on them and give them a "face lift", so to speak.

The before picture.The mushroom afterwards.
The mushroom and the frog in their new home. The roses in the new section. Mind you, they are only a few wks. old. but growing and surviving in this extreme heat.

Another frog sitting under a tree. Taking a closer look at him I think he'll need some touching up soon.

This one is a little larger and sits at the very back of the backyard near the bird bath.

I painted the larger frog recently, too

One sits in the little water fountain and seems to keep the birds from playing and making a mess in the fountain. I assume they are afraid of it.
One more sits in this cascade of flowers at the entrance to the back gate.

I hope you're having a fun week!

Works of God Monday

Reflecting back on this week there were two things that came to mind that I want to praise the Lord for:

My friend CeeKay has been battling ovarian cancer for almost 2 years now. She went for her checkup last week and got a very good report. She doesn't have to be on Chemo right now and can go another 3 months enjoying her life without the debilitating side effects it brings.

I'm so happy for her.

Our daughter and family, that just went to CA to plant a church in Riverside, had been there less than 2 wks. when they experienced their first earthquake. At 5.4 on the scale it was enough to shake their house and rattle windows. I'm so thankful for God's watchcare over them and their belongings.

God is so good!

When Time Stood Still

Welcome to another Show & Tell day! Thank you to all who left sweet comments last week on my blog.

I thought I'd share with you a sentimental idea that could be done with different pictures around your house. Below is the hospital photo of our first born daughter. I found a small clock at an estate sale and set the time at exactly the moment she came into this world, 2:09 p.m. to be exact.



I did the same for our second daughter born at exactly 7:47 p.m. using an old pocket watch. I display them in the entertainment center in the family room. (picture below)



They are setting on the shelves to the left.

You could do this with a wedding photo or any special occasion. I hope you have enjoyed your visit and have a great weekend.

The Little Box

I have a little dilemma and wanted your advice on what to do.

I painted this little box for my hubby many years ago. It sat on top of his dresser where he could deposit everything out of his pockets at the end of the day. ( Don't worry, I had a piece of glass cut to fit over the painting. ) Anyway, back to the dilemma, our furniture was Oak way back then and now it is Cherry.
Do you think I ought to paint or stain the box or just leave it as is and put it somewhere else as an accent piece? Let me know what you all think, ok? Thanks a bunch!