God's Perfect Timing

 I woke up this morning to the singing of a Mockingbird.  Music to my ears.  I prayed thankfully for a great nights sleep to such quiet that the thing that woke me up was a Mockingbird (not a rooster).  "Thank you Jesus for my ears to hear!"  As I opened my eyes I saw a tiny speck of red reflecting on the window.  "Oh my" I thought, I know what that means!  I moved the pillows out of the way and this is what I saw.

I felt a bit like the guy in the story "The Night Before Christmas"...."I sprang up from my bed to see what was the matter!".

Clad in only my Victoria Secret tee shirt and house shoes, I grabbed my camera and dashed out the front door.  It was about 6:40a.m.

 "Praise God.  Thank you Jesus for my eyes to see!"

The ripples and the waves in the clouds were just truly unbelievable to see.  

 Wow, I snapped these photos (and many more) as the seconds clicked by.

I waved at the school bus full of kids as it went by, still almost dark, lights flashing, camera in hand.

"Wow, it's cold out here I thought" as I stood watching and snapping.  My outside thermometer said 42 degrees!

This was my last photo.  What a difference a second makes.  I went back inside about 6:50a.m.

Outside at this moment, it is overcast and a bit dreary looking actually.  Had I not got up to see it with my own eyes, I would never have believed that THIS sunrise rose this morning.

My lesson?  God's timing is so perfect.  To question it, His timing, makes no sense at all when you witness something like this.

1. Romans 8:25
   But if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently.
2. Hebrews 6:15
   And so after waiting patiently, Abraham received what was promised.

Encourage One Another, continuing the journey on fresh paths.

Blessings and love to you, xoxo.

Project List-Two Bed Side Tables

Painting these two tables which have been beside my bed (for years) has been on my project list for months.  They've been on there so long buying new ones instead of painting these has been added to the list.  Months ago, like October or so, I purchased these little sample jars of paint with an intent to paint these.  I just didn't.  Last week, in my effort to get my house in order and situated and tired of looking at Craigslist, I decided to take this project on.  I choice the one on my side of the bed first.  When I bought this little "thing" about 2-3 years ago I intended to paint it then.  It was a pale yellow really only partially painted.  Looks like the top was stained or something.  What a terrible job!  All I did however, when I got it was to glue it where it was coming apart and left it like this.  Lovely right?  Anyway, onward.

I took it outside on the porch to lightly sand and then brought it inside and put a drop cloth down.  Away I went.
 
So here are the befores and afters.

Creamy white now!

 I bought a pretty little turquoise ceramic knob and switched it out with the old one.

This table had a crack down the center.  I had to add some "wood putty" to fill it in.  Then I sanded that down.  

This little table my great grandfather made by hand years ago.  My grandmother had painted it this, well, I don't know what color it is and then "antiqued" it like they use to years ago.  She painted a bunch of stuff this color???

Better in the same creamy white?

 Here are the tables in place beside the bed (it's hard to see the great grandfather table on the left), the new valances and the newly hung horse canvas pictures.

I'm pretty happy with how they turned out.  They both took about 2-3 hours to complete, including the sanding and painting twice.  I'm pleased with how they look in the room.

I'm still perhaps on the prowl for some white night stands with drawers (to give me more storage) to go on either side of the bed.  However, until I find some, either to paint or already painted, or if I decide not to buy any, these are so fabulously much better than they were!

Yea me...I can paint furniture after all.  I love learning the lesson if I'll just try, I can!

Deuteronomy 2:7

The Lord your God has blessed you in all the work of your hands. 

Proverbs 12:14

From the fruit of their lips people are filled with good things, and the work of theirhands brings them reward.

Encourage One Another, continuing the journey on fresh paths.

Blessings and love to all, xoxo.

PS  I found and bought a white wrought iron trundle bed for the studio today.  Photos on that room pending pick up and set up and once it's all set.

The Other Room

OK, I hate to admit it.  This is the second bedroom months (October) after I moved in.  The room just overwhelmed me.  I did not know how I was going to get through all this stuff.  I wanted to keep it all and I had NOWHERE in this house to put it.  I wanted this room to be a bedroom for baby Gray and anyone else that came to visit and a studio for me.  Like I said...overwhelming.

After a little work the boxes dwindled but I still had a long way to go.

Here are more photos of even more days of work and several months later.  Boxes were disappearing still.  It's a bit like the clowns that keep piling out of a VW.  They just keep coming and coming.  Where do they all come from and where do they all go!

A few weeks ago I bought two of the smaller 36" shelves.  After working to get the first one "filled" I knew another small one was not going to be enough.  So yesterday I went and bought the larger, 48" one.  This is the room today, six months and 16 days after I moved in.  While there is still a great deal of organizing, switching around, grouping etc., at least all the boxes are gone.  Every last one of them have been unpacked and disassembled.  Almost everything has a place.  Praise God!

This is the work table, my spot, my creative area.  It sits in front of the window so I can see out as I work.  My inspirations on the window sill include a little butterfly painting painted by my mother, a jeweled cross made by me in 2002 (one of the last ones I made but still have), a photo of my parents holding my very young daughter, and a sign "dream" to keep me dreaming and creating.

It's not finished yet.  The room still needs a day bed with a trundle which I'm still on the hunt for.  I'm hoping to find it soon.  I'll move a few more things around then to make it work and fit.  Perhaps some of the organizing will be finished by then.  Perhaps I will have started and or even finished my first project.  My thought about that first project will be a cross.  One created in my little house in the country that I love so much, symbolizing my gratitude for a wonderful life.

I'll keep you posted!

Psalm 105:1-6 It is good to give thanks to the Lord.

Encourage One Another, continuing the journey on fresh paths.

Blessings and love to you, xoxo.

A Visit From My Sister

How exciting when my sister called and said "hey, can I come visit?  Are you busy?"  I said "heck no, when you comin'?"  So we made a plan!

She arrived Wednesday evening.

I had cooked smothered dove, Texamati Rice, Vegas garlic toast and a green salad with Romaine, cucumbers, olives, avocado and Olive Garden Dressing!  I greeted her with a glass of champagne (one of our adult beverages of choice) and a sit on the porch.  It was a perfect evening for sitting out.  We enjoyed our dinner about an hour later.

After dinner we had a nice quiet visit and headed to bed about 11.  I gave her my room and Ikey and I slept on the sofa.  It was actually pretty comfortable.  I've slept on it before but didn't remember it being comfortable.  Everybody slept well.

We woke up to a beautiful day.  I heated up some of my homemade cinnamon rolls that I had frozen since last October.

I wasn't sure that they would still be good so I also baked some yummy little pigs in the blanket.  Turns out the cinnamon rolls were DELICIOUS.  So we had some of both along with coffee for her and tea for me out on the front porch.  We sat outside for a couple of hours.  It was almost hot, close to 80, and all the sudden a front blew in and lowered the temperature about 10 degrees and windy.  We headed inside to take on the first project.

I'd been in the process of making a "list" of little projects for her to help me with for the last couple of days.  Just things that I'd been needing to do for a while and needed a second opinion or second set of hands.

We consulted and moved furniture on paper in the second bedroom until we had several options and determined that a 48" shelving unit would fit after all, not just the 36".  That had been my next biggest question about that room.  We also moved things around to determine the art work table could go in front of the west facing window, not just the south window where the sun comes in ALL day.  Check!

Next I got out the fabric samples and the final decision there was that there is yet to be a final decision after all.  That project still has a way to go.  Boo on that!  Check.

We looked at the 2 different valances I have up on the windows in my bedroom.  We determined the off white ones looked the best.  We hung those.  Check!

Those two painted horse canvas photos I bought at Home Goods several months ago had been waiting to be hung.  She helped me position, measure and hang those.  Check!

A few weeks ago I purchased 4 canvas wrapped prints, 16 x 20, to go over the fireplace.  Since I took them I have been wanting to make canvas wrapped prints of some of the wild horses I photographed in September 2011 in New Mexico.  She helped me determine how many, which direction they should go, and which prints to to select to go on the canvas'.  The result, 3 horizontal.  Check!
Here are the ones we decided on.

We did all that yesterday. We rewarded ourselves with a few glasses of champagne on the front porch!  It was a fabulous evening outside and we sat out there until after dark.  Porching remains one of the greatest things out here at the little house.

For dinner I cooked her tomato and Panko topped baked Tilapia, steamed cauliflower and broccoli, and that same great salad with Olive Garden dressing.  Seriously yum!

Wow.  She needs to come more often so I can get more things done.  This morning that cold front made it too cold and windy to sit outside so we had our blueberry muffins inside at the bar.  After that she stripped the bed, stuck the sheets in the washer, helped me re-make up the bed and we just sat and visited until she had to leave.

What a fabulous day and a half.  I miss her so much, my sister.  In Midland we use to see each other weekly for sure and often more often.  It has been a bit of a withdrawal not seeing her all the time.  However, we are close and distance is just a blip in the microsphere.  Is that a word?  I am so so blessed to have a sister who loves me not matter what.  Seriously, no matter what, she loves me and I love her.  Do you have that with someone?  With our parents being gone, who both loved both of us no matter what, they passed it on to us, love for each other and that same unconditional love for our children.  Unconditional love!  A blessing.

So here's to sisters, and love, and family and blessings.  I hope you have even a little bit of all!

Psalm 100:5

For the Lord is good and his love endures forever; his faithfulness continues through all generations.

Encourage One Another, continuing the journey on fresh paths.

Blessings and love to you, xoxo

This is "The Life"

Blessed, that's what I am, truly.  I live a simple life.  I don't have a lot of money.  I don't have a lot of worry, or stress, or issues, or family problems, or money problems, or hard work.  I don't have it all.  I have what I need.  I have a relished life filled with peace, and quiet, and love, and beauty.  I have my family who loves me.  I have a life others would love to have.  When I hear my friends speak of their troubles and their difficulties, I quickly recognize how blessed I am and I thank God.  Who knew but him that after all the things that I've lived through, that right now, this is where I would be?  I wish I could say I never complain.  I wish I could say I never wish I had something else.  I wish I could say I never say I wish this was different.  But I can't.  I do know that I would not trade my life for anyone else's or give it up or take a big risk and lose it all.

This week when Baby Gray was here and we were outside swinging and we were laughing and he was smiling and opening his arms wide and saying "How much do I love you", it just confirmed beyond a shadow of a doubt that this is where I'm suppose to be.  This is my life and it's filled with love.

And as the butterfly flew by (right in front of us where he could see it) watching us play (butterflies are a sign my mom is looking down from heaven with love), I cried.

God is good.  He may not answer your prayers the way you hoped he would or you thought it should be.  He may do it better than you ever dreamed.
Still dreaming and praying in my little house!

Ephesians 3
²⁰ Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, ²¹ to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen.

Encourage One Another, continuing the journey on fresh paths.

Blessings and love to you, xoxo.

Call Me Crazy

And call me crazy, but guess who just showed up on the porch this morning, hanging out where their roosting box use to be...the Morning Doves!

(Posts from 10/30/12 and 11/4/12)
http://thegoodlife54.blogspot.com/2012/10/and-they-lived-happily-ever-after.html
http://thegoodlife54.blogspot.com/2012/11/post-script-to-and-they-lived-happily.html

They are out there right now!  For me to move and get my camera, I'm sure they'd see me through the window.  It's them.  No really, I know it's them.  They are just picking and cleaning and scratching away.  They feel safe up there.  I don't know where they've been.  Someplace warm I suspect.  There are three of them.  You remember, the mama and two babies.  They are on a little red table on the porch enjoying the sun.

OK, I couldn't stand it.  I had to slither along the floor with my phone and get these photos so you would believe me.

How do I know it's them?  Because I believe it it; because I'm a romantic; because I believe dove go back to where they lived the years before and make a nest; because it just is.

Call me crazy!

Genesis 8
⁸ Then he sent out a dove to see if the water had receded from the surface of the ground. ⁹ But the dove could find nowhere to perch because there was water over all the surface of the earth; so it returned to Noah in the ark. He reached out his hand and took the dove and brought it back to himself in the ark. ¹⁰ He waited seven more days and again sent out the dove from the ark. ¹¹ When the dove returned to him in the evening, there in its beak was a freshly plucked olive leaf! Then Noah knew that the water had receded from the earth.

Encourage One Another, continuing the journey on fresh paths.

Blessings and love to you, xoxo!

Country Birds in Winter

I know I blogged when I first moved here that country summer birds just were not interested in bird feeders.  There must be such cool things in the country for birds to eat that little seeds in a barrel are just boring.  I have found country winter birds are different.  They enjoy the little seed feast.  They even seem to flick it out on the ground so other birds can enjoy it.  My feeders are rather small and have short perches that the sparrows love but which make it hard for dove and Field Lark to sit on, so they eat off the ground.  There's a bunch of them out there.  I can see them daily through the window.

In fact, I have put up two feeders now since there are so many.   They come every day.  I do not know obviously if they are the same ones, but there are many.

They are just fun to watch.  I can hear a wood pecker in the distance.  I love birds.  I love their sounds, their antics, their colors, and just the fact that they never worry.  They know God will provide for them, some how, some way.  They in fact don't know any other way.  They don't even try to do it alone.  I love their attitude.  Think I'll take a lesson here.

All these things do the nations of the world seek after: and your Father knoweth that ye have need of these things. But rather seek ye the kingdom of God; and all these things shall be added unto you.

- Luke 12:30-31 (KJV)

Encourage One Another, continuing the journey on fresh paths.

Love and blessings to you, xoxo!

Our Valentine Day Surprise Cookies

Baby Gray is here for a few days.  As you know, today is Valentines Day so we are working on a surprise project for our Valentines!
We got the big stool out so BG could get high enough on the counter.  He really liked that.

So we set about getting the cookies on the cookie sheet.

His way!

My way (didn't know how much these may or may not rise so I just wanted to be sure they had enough room).

We added a few decorations BEFORE we cooked them.

Here they go in!

He is his grandmother's grandson...he had to try the dough!!

The timer went off.  Checking to see if they are ready.  They need about 2 more minutes.

READY!  Add Sugar. Let cool!

Decorate again!

Some for us!

Some for them!  XOXO  Happy Valentines Day mom and dad....hope you read this today!!!

Love Baby Gray and Annie!

Encourage one another, continuing the journey on Fresh paths!

John 13:34-35
“A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you mustlove one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you loveone another.” 

Blessings and love, xo