Thankful Thursday....

This has probably been mentioned before, but I am so thankful for digital photography!  I hope everyone gets even half as much joy from their photos as I do from mine.  There is seldom a week goes by that I don't get started looking for one photo, and end up getting totally lost in the archives.

Remembering times when Lorelei was here and how she loved this or that.   Watering the flowers and the garden...blowing bubbles, going for rides on 4-wheeler with papaw.

Or  remembering drives we have taken...animals we have seen.  Those perfect days when the sky is so blue that it almost hurts to look at.  Making you almost catch your breath with the joy of being alive.

Linking to Thankful Thursday.

BTW, the photo is from 2012.  I ran across it while looking for pictures of hibiscus....

Resevoir Cats

I am reading Reservoir Cats, True Tales and Cat's Eye Views  from Squirt, by Pamela Ashworth.  It is written as if Squirt the cat is telling the stories....it is just a piece of lighthearted fun to read.  He is the runt of the litter and to make sure he is not chosen to go to a new home, he half starves himself till no one will choose him.

When the other kitties have new homes and he knows he is going to stay home with his mother and the Staff as he calls the owners, he writes:

They really don't know what they have let themselves in for,

Soon it will be time to let my inner lunatic run free.

I don't know why, but that just struck me so funny.   Just what I needed to lighten the day.

Not much of a post

This will not be much of a post, but better a small one than nothing at all.  I got the blocks all sewn together last week, but still have not started on the borders.

Lorelei is sleeping beside me...we were out about midnight looking for Mr. Toad.  No luck there.   She and I have the hardest time getting to bed at an early hour...her mom was the same way.  We do better when she is in school.
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My grand-dog Delta caught her second shrew last night.  She caught one last week or the week before and ate it before her mom could get to her and get it.

Last night when she got tired of it biting her she decided to roll on it!  Her mom got her inside before it went too far and disposed of it later.
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Did you ever have something hit you like a ton of bricks?  When Sandra's Bob had his stroke the other day, I was on facebook more than I am on in a month.  I just wanted to know what was going on.

I went back in this blog reading some of what I wrote with Roger's stroke and I just had to stop.  I have thought I would write more about how things are, but I find that it is better to not think too deep.

I am not even sure what I am trying to say....maybe that it has been a rough week or two or three.  In more ways than one.  I have had a couple or three other things really get to me...but I have to learn to live with things and just accept them as they are.

A few views from down home....

Just a few shots from home...above the railroad us children walked to and from school.  Below, Roger and my brother walking ahead of me as we walk back up to where our old home was.

All have been posted before...below is the barn we pass on the way to the old place.  This farm before our old homeplace is where Roger and I spent a 1 1/2 yrs durning our younger days.  It is my favorite place on earth.

I hope you enjoy the photos.

I hope that someday I feel secure enough about Roger's health to drive down there again.

So many times when I am on Youtube in the video below pops up and it makes me homesick...that is what led to me posting a few pics from home.

A bit about blogging...

The view as I drove west this morn...no one was close to me and I just held my camera up and snapped.  Please click to expand the view.

So now a little bit about blogging...

It started out as way to share my photos and quilting.  And I still love it for that.

I did not realize how much I would get from it....a lot of days I learn some little fact that is totally new to me, or I see photos of new birds, or butterflies, and see views from other parts of the country, or other countries that I would never have seen if I had not been blogging.  Not to mention new ideas of how to do things.

There is friendship...I have phone numbers of friends that want me to feel free to call them any time I need to talk...one friend has invited us to come spend the night in with her and her husband several times.  We had promised ourselves to go down last fall when Lorelei got back in school.  Now they are in the midst of selling their home and I am not even sure how Roger would do on that trip that far anyway...they are probably about 4 hours from me, maybe a bit longer.

Then there is the power of prayer....I really felt like we were held up in prayer through all of this with Roger's stroke.  I did not feel like people said it just to be saying it...I felt like when they said they prayed for us they did.  Whether it was one prayer right then,  or some I know prayed for us every day.  Some more than once a day.

All this through blogging.

Smile!

I just love this picture of Lorelei...you can just see her sunny spirit shining through.

One side finished....

Daughter came this weekend and we worked on the other valances we are making.  This is one side finished....not sure what to do about the wrinkles.  They got that way in traveling home.  They are stapled on a 'cornice'...not sure if that is the correct term or not.  It is a wooden form that fits over the window.  Click to expand the view and you will see the beads along the bottom.

This is how they look from a distance...oh, and neither picture is the right color.  The fabric is definitely blue...it has some mingled color of tan/off white...I tried to change the color and these are too dark.  At least on my computer.

Edited to add:
We have to make another set to go on the other side of the fireplace.  You can barely see the other window at the edge of the photo.

Five favorites....

I was visiting a blog and she closed with a quote from a John Denver song...I thought that's it.  I will choose five of my favorite John Denver songs...



These are in no particular order...



I just love them all.



I hope you enjoy at least one of them...



I am trying to limit myself to 5 but that is hard to do.



It was a quote from the above that gave me the idea...this song sometimes goes through my head in the spring....

And in the fall it is Poems, Prayers, and Promises....

 

A bit of randomness....

1.  I finally finished this a week or two ago...I really cannot remember how long.  But recently.  I kept thinking I would wait and post a photo of before and after washing, but I still haven't washed it yet.  It is to go on the back of Roger's chair and it approx 42 x 30, give or take an inch or two.

2.  I love to take my socks off at the end of the day and set my toes free!

3.  I broke down and got THIS tablet...I do really like it.  It is so convenient to sit on the porch with it.  The picture of the quilt above was taken with it.

4.  My oldest daughter wanted to make some lined valances for her house.  So we worked on them a couple weekends ago...the window is so wide that we had to match the print of the drapery fabric.  if you look close you can see the seam...but believe me in real life standing back from it 3 or 4 feet, it is very hard to see...

5.  I am leaving you with a video my nephew sent to me....



Linking to Willy Nilly Friday 5.....

Holding her cousin...

This is Lorelei, holding her little cousin....don't you just love the look on her face!

She has been here the past two nights, but had to go home this evening.

She wanted to go to Mansfield and wade and fish and hunt for crawdads.  Before we got there, we realized that the Big Raccoon is still almost up and not too far from being out of banks.  So, rather than go down the road and on to Mansfield, we went up  and across the dam, and parked and walked down to the water.  I wish I had taken a photo of the little dock.  Water was up level with it, and you could see that the water had complete covered it and its railings.

Anyway, I mentioned over here on my other blog about the Great Blue Herons landing on the water.  This was in water way over my head.   They only landed and then took off immediately...the tips of their wings touching the water.  I had fully expected to see them struggle.

I have only ever seen them land in shallow water.  In talking with a blog friend, I got to wondering if they could swim, and I remembered seeing a video of an eagle swimming...



this is not the one I seen, maybe I saw it on TV.  But if you go here, you will see several samples of Bald Eagles swimming.

So I thought, maybe Blue Herons can swim, so did a minimal search...and I found a couple samples.



While I feel this was in fairly shallow water, I do feel like it was floating along.  And it had to fly to where it could stand.

I am 60 years old and yesterday was a first for me....but I sure hope I get to witness it again....

This and that....

First, something to make you smile....my daughter sent me this last night.  Ignore my copyright being on there, she took the photo.  That is a puppy that Delta is so intent on.

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Roger definitely turned a page....got up yesterday morn and it was like a light had been flipped on.  He was joking and laughing and there was a twinkle in his eyes.    He still seems to tire easily, and I can see it in his eyes, but it is such a different look.    Anyway, thank you for your prayers and well wishes.

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Roger has an old gauge that measure the temperature of steam....he has it fixed to the side of a porch post.  (To see how its temperature reading compares with our regular thermometer.)  I was sitting out there and I have no idea why I happened to notice this.  A wasps nest...I have got to spray it and get rid of them....just have not done it yet.