Garden Party with Mom and Aunt Laurie

And this photo is just how I will always remember Mom and Aunt Laurie.  Can you feel their sweetness right through this picture, or does it seem this way to me because I know them?  Well, they are that sweet, and this image from yesterday afternoon captures them perfectly.  And o' the fun we had!  ♥  Just to see Aunt Laurie again, period, after her health scare earlier this summer. . . And to get to share with her and Mom one of this summer's rare afternoons with a nice breeze. . . . I could still cry thinking about it.  And LAUGH thinking about it too, since right after Mom and Aunt Laurie had arranged the pretty tables and chairs and dainty tea party supplies out in the yard, one of my parents' neighbors decided the time was right to pull off his shirt and take care of the field behind their house on his riding mower.  'Not quite the ambience they been going for, so while the neighbor zoomed back and forth on the mower across the lawn behind them, they began moving the festivities father away into Mom's actual garden.  I was finishing decorating my frog cookies--I had to include frogs for Aunt Laurie, of course--when Mom came into my room to recount the Tale of the Topless Interloper.  Then Mom couldn't get my bedroom door to reopen.  Aunt Laurie was on the other side, and we all began howling as we imagined our sliding a cookie under the door for Aunt Laurie and of her somehow trying to jimmy a window open to rescue us.  As we laughed, the door popped free, and we set off--finally!--to enjoy our party.  And found, of course, that the neighbor had since finished his lawn-mowing and Mom and Aunt Laurie had moved everything for nothing.  :)

We hadn't coordinated our tea party plans with each other pre-visit, so each of us literally just brought something to the table and we made it work.  It ended up being a yellow, red, and pink affair with mismatched florals and ginghams.  I had kept it simple by buying a package of gluten-free sandwich cookies and decorating a few as frogs for my (long-suffering) aunt.  I combined lemon and lime-flavored mini marshmallows with a handful of sweetened coconut flakes, a can of fruit cocktail, a can of pineapple chunks, a little whipped cream, and a few spoonfuls of pistachio-flavored pudding mix for a quick take on ambrosia, one of Aunt Laurie's favorites. 

Mom had a similar idea and simply mixed together sliced strawberries, whipped cream, and a little strawberry-flavored gelatin powder for an easy strawberry salad.  (You can make these salads with any flavor of pudding or gelatin mix, of course, adding whatever fruit complements the mix-flavor. 'No waiting for gelatins to set or puddings to cook or chill.) 

Aunt Laurie gifted me with these cute little paper plates, but I just had to use the first three during our party, of course.  She gave Mom this new tea pot, brought Hershey Kisses candies in pink wrappers, and baked gluten-free blueberry and cranberry muffins in red gingham liners. 

 Aunt Laurie loved her little scrapbook I'd made her--  :)

--and she looked at it and a couple other little gifts I'd found her while we ate.  Dear Aunt Laurie.  ♥

The afternoon would grow hot, but we were outside early enough to enjoy warm-but-not-too-warm weather and even a good breeze.  The rain held off another day, only falling this morning as Dad and I made the trip back to the bus station. 

And while the table and chairs would have looked sweet beside the bunny shed and field too, Mom's garden ended up being the perfect spot for our little party, with Mom's flowers in bloom all around us, a bit of shade from the Sumac tree that stands nearby, and a bit of privacy from Dad's grape arbors off to one side. 

Aunt Laurie showed me sketches she had made of dreams and experiences she had had while in the hospital during her sepsis care this June. . . .She was visited by her and Mom's dearly-missed grandmother and by their beloved aunt Ann.  Aunt Laurie said that even at her sickest, she was never afraid because she could feel like a protective force around her all the prayers and good energy we were all sending her way. 

Hearing that from her was itself an answered prayer for me, as was this entire get-together, of course. 

'One of our favorite times together, and that it could have so easily not happened at all--due to illness and weather and lawn-mowers and locked doors--made it, ultimately, all the sweeter. 

I captured eighty seconds of it on video too, but I will remember the gentle breeze, pretty flowers and goodies, and these sweet hearts even without it. 

Ah, love!  ♥  Blessed, blessed, blessed. 

We Make Our Own Sunshine

Likely because I have had to spend the past few days inside the apartment waiting for packages to be delivered, I am craving sunshine and light and fresh air and bold colors like mad lately.  The joke has been on captive-feeling, Cabin Fever-ed me so far this week, since although online shipping notifications stated that the packages were "out for delivery" starting in the morning both Monday and yesterday, the buzzer didn't ring until 3 p.m. Monday and until 6 p.m. last night, so I had stayed indoors "for nothing" hour after hour both days when I could have bundled up and headed out for a walk.  I love my little home, but even a homebody needs fresh air and exercise, especially a homebody who recently polished off most of a Valentine's Day carrot cake by herself.  :)  

This reminds me to tell you that in last Sunday's post about my grandmother, I should have mentioned that whenever my dad would try to get Grandma to join Papa on his daily walk or to do a bit of exercise on her own, Grandma would shake her head and reply, "But I did that already!  When I was a schoolgirl, we all had to do fitness exercises!"  As if physical activity was a life event.  :)  Year after year, Dad argued the benefits of a daily walk, but Grandma never budged on the issue.  She had done that already, end of story.  Remembering their frustrating-to-each-other arguments on this still makes me laugh.  ♥

Meanwhile, back at the ranch. . . .Stuffed and I have spent my time off this week here in the apartment, Stuffed more often than not cuddled up with paws outstretched under the space heater or radiator while I've tried to get some more projects crossed off my seemingly epic To Do list.  I have been faux-upholstering (just kind of making it up as I go along) the wing chair above for awhile now.  A post for another day, and hopefully, not too long from now either, as I'm eager to be done with this project.  After rearranging the fabric squares with straight pins the past couple days, I think I have the patchwork the way I want it.  (A quick glance behind me and I see it's changed a little more since I took that photo, but you get the idea.)  The seat, for now, is a vintage pink roses baby blanket.  It's not at all a cutter, and I almost hate to hide the size and condition of it by using it as a chair seat, but it's also perfect for the project, so for now, it stays.  I haven't touched the chair's sides or bottom/skirt yet and have only begun to re-cushion the arms, so there is still much to do, but it's beginning to look the way I'd envisioned it.  And Stuffed has been content to nap in the warmth instead of nosing around the needles, thread, and hot glue, so we're both happy.  

A few rays of sunlight have been spotted in here this week. 

Pay Day will find me treating myself to this year's first bundle of Daffodils.  They are my favorites, so they show up here and there in various ways in the apartment year-round, but there's nothing like a real Daffodil, especially during these dreary end-of-winter weeks. 

February wraps up tomorrow.

March is almost here. 

And today itself is cozy and certainly good enough, with its comfy cat and spots of light and its colorful patches and tea and a husband on the way home from work soon.  There is even--although Grandma would shudder at the thought--time and opportunity for a brisk walk.  Life is good, life is very good, and let me not forget it.  ♥

Sunday Before Thanksgiving, From Birds to Bedtime

'Got up hours before Mike this morning.  'Walked to Target hoping to find one of the $1 "L♥VE" Christmas tree ornaments I'd seen on their website before the Black Friday shopper hoopla begins later this week and they all get snatched-up.  I found two, one for the tree and one to keep out year-round.  And two little birds to add to my flock that flutters against our red gingham curtains.  At our old apartment, we had a view of both the backyard and side yard and could watch Cardinals, Robins, and Chickadees (←my favorites) flit around for the seed we would scatter for them, but our new apartment has no real yard and sees no birds, so for now, it's an ever-growing collection of curtain birds.  'Picked out some Thanksgiving cards and Snoopy-themed Thanksgiving stickers to mail out tomorrow.  'Found four plates and two books at Goodwill.  Have I mentioned that I actually hate shopping?  I try to do as much online as possible.  After today, I am aiming for one more Target trip for Christmas gifts and hoping I can finish the rest online.  I usually succeed at this.  'Definitely a "Far from the Maddening Crowd" person.  

'Annoyed Stuffed by taking his picture while he sat on his window perch, but his posture was so cute and the trees in the neighbor's yard so glowing, I couldn't resist.  He spent last week determined to rub his nose against every corner in the apartment and is now black and white with a gray-until-all-his-fur-grows-back nose, but he is as adorable as ever.  While I was at work one night last week, he played fetch with one of his cat toys with Mike, trotting down the hall with the toy in his mouth and then returning to the living room with it.  I always tell Mike that if Stuffed didn't have claws, I'd be tempted to walk around holding him like a toy all day long, he's just so soft and cuddly and so purely CUTE, my favorite stuffed animal come-to-life.  'Love, love, love this shy little soul.  ♥

'Got my Thanksgiving cards ready to mail. Last month, I pressed a bunch of colorful leaves into the pages of a book to include in future letters, and they're now preserved in Thanksgiving mail with transparent tape over them.  I only remembered at the last minute today to buy Thanksgiving cards, so to end up even this on-top-of-things tonight is a pleasant surprise.  I volunteered to work Thanksgiving again this year so I can have Christmas off instead, so it just really hasn't been on my mind.  Mike will be spending Thursday with his family, and he and I will have a Thanksgiving dinner together sometime next week, I suppose.   

'Went out to supper with Mike and had two of the best iced teas I've had since Summer of Sun Tea (and Humidity) 2012.    Everyone in our section of booths at the restaurant tonight was so appreciative of the server and so pleasant toward her and with each other, it made our simple meal out even better.  The last time we went out to eat, everyone in our section was treated to an elderly woman in the booth beside ours who squawked at the harried server--who was a good ten yards away from her at the time--"What happened to the sour cream I was supposed to get THIRTY MINUTES AGO?????"  Grrrrrrrr.  The server handled it like a champ and later joked about it with us, but rudeness like that just makes my blood boil.  It is soooooo much nicer when people are just pleasant to each other.  "You know, we're living in a SOCIETY!" as George shouted on "Seinfeld."  Mike and I did enjoy barking variations of the elderly woman's line at each other for awhile after returning home tonight, though.  "What happened to the [drink/snack/napkin] you were supposed to bring me THIRTY MINUTES AGOOOOOOO?!!??"

'Admired my umpteen layers of clothing while I waited for Mike to get a coffee at Dunkin' Donuts for the walk home after supper.  I love this weather.  The stars were out as we walked, and it was just breezy enough to feel brisk and not so cold that it hurt our throats to breathe.  The houses were not yet decked-out in holiday lights as they'll start to be later this week.  For the last Sunday this year, their only glow came from interior lights and nearby street lamps.  A few pumpkins still sat on porch steps.  We only shared the sidewalks with a few people who were walking their dogs, which reminded us, at it always does, of the time we were walking some of the same streets only to find a tiny dog that had broken free of its fenced-in yard, and while we waited for the owners to meet us at the street we'd called to tell them we were on, I sat on the sidewalk holding the little dog and it rested his head on my thigh as if settling onto its pillow for the night.  So dear.  The puppy's name was "Coco," the owners told us when they arrived to take him home soon after that, so now every time Mike and I walk in that area, we recount the Coco story to each other and laugh about how, even though he was lost and had never seen us before, Coco had promptly snuggled his teacup-size head onto my lap.  ♥  

'Talked with Mom and Dad tonight and emailed a couple friends.  And now Mike has gone to bed and I am up late, as always, with my books and more iced tea beside me before I join him.  The blue floral skirt here is part of the desk re-do I've been working on, a story for another day.