July and August

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And Baby's Arrived ♥

wrote my brother, who now has a family of four  ♥

The Love of Little Cottages

Between my grandfather's death and my grandmother's sorting through her own things these past two years, I've somehow come into possession of what seems to be the only remaining photo of my maternal great-grandparents' house in New York.  A little Aunt Laurie is the girl standing in the front here.  It is a cottage!  Be still my heart!  ♥  When Mom saw my reaction as I thumbed through the pile of old pictures this was in, she said, "Well, I've told you about it before.  You knew they lived in a little house"--with an implied "???" at the end of her words.  And yes, I had, but there are little houses and there are cottages.  It's like her grandparents lived in a backyard playhouse.  How sweet is this!  ♥  We all come by our love of little homes honestly in this family, then.  :)  

Hearts and Flowers, or Up-and-Down Spring

'A perfect heart-shaped stone Mom found out in my garden this spring. 

Spring has been lovely, 

and now we move into summer already.  The oldest I've ever been and the fastest-moving year I've ever had, and I'm sure the two go together.  I turned 42 last month, my older brother is only five years from 50, baby Bianca "graduated" kindergarten last week, "little" Dylan who started kindergarten just yesterday has a girlfriend and is in high school this fall with his sister, a new niece or nephew is due any day now, I have been struggling for awhile now with what seems to be psoriatic arthritis, and all this to say time has been flying and I have been feeling old.  Bianca's cat ↓ captures my wary watching of the seasons as they change.  :)

'A thousand changes at work lately too, which have made for a stressful spring.  As Lisa over at "Searching for a Balance" knows, balance isn't something you find once and cross off your to-do list, but instead something you have to re-find over and over every day.  I found the below heart on a table at my workplace one night this spring and had to laugh.  When a paper towel-piece heart randomly appears on a worktable, I have to take it as a reminder to "be still and know that [He is] God," right.   So I adjust to the thousand new changes and plod onward. 

And get a haircut that is way too short--where is my wild mass of curls!!!??!!  GONE!  I now have the smallest sprig of them, like an unruly paintbrush perched atop my head--

 --then I find a heart in my hummus and chips and chill out a little more.  Again. 

I made it home around Mother's Day and Father's Day so got to see both my family and my roses--Louise Odier is in bloom this very week!  ♥--and those things alone end this up-and-down June on a sweet note.  

Heaven on earth!  And the scent!!  ♥  I made a small bouquet of these and my white Iceberg roses for my sister-in-law Sunday as she works her way through her final days of pregnancy.   To her, the days are probably not moving along quickly enough.  

'Another perfect heart Tuesday afternoon, this one as I was waiting for the bus back to the apartment post-visit home.  And tomorrow, it will be summer.  Ay yi yi.  

♥

Saturday Afternoon

dear sweet Stuffed  ♥

Magnolia Heart

♥

Easter 2019

Happy Easter--and spring (here, at least), finally!

--to you all.  ♥

Artwork by Bianca

The flu struck the week before Thanksgiving and never really went away.  'Am still sick but can almost say I've managed to pull off another Christmas.  This is niece Bianca's Saturday depiction of the two of us beside the Christmas tree.  (My hair!  Our eyes!)  Rarely have I been more charmed by something (or someone).  :)  ♥  Happy holidays to you all, and catch you in the new year. 

In a Glass Pie Plate

When last featured, the squash was smiling at me.  ♥ 

Home Today

A cleansing and beautifying project seemed the way to go this weekend, and it's a rare weekend off, so I've been painting the orange wall a soft white as the start of redoing the wall in white, pink, and green.  A couple months ago, I ordered a wallpaper sample of this print--

--but since I'm not allowed to wallpaper here, I'm using the sample more as an idea for a hand-painted design.  

The red gingham curtains will be (moved into the bedroom possibly and) replaced with green gingham ones.  I have green gingham fabric I've ordered, green gingham fabric my grandmother's passed along, and a ready-made green gingham valance found at a thrift shop on one of my last visits home, so I'm thinking some combination of those pieces to make the new curtains.  I don't enjoy sewing, the curtain rods' brackets are rickety and like to fall out of the wall/window-frame whenever I so much as stare at them too long, and the wall and widow-frames themselves are as unyielding as bricks, so nothing about the curtain-making or curtain-hanging sounds like anything but a hassle except finishing it, so as soon as all the white-painting and rose-painting are done, I will need to buckle down and just do it. 

The white wall, green gingham, mostly gray pots/pans, probably-black frames for the samplers, and the pink roses all sound comforting and fresh and "me" to me and are the coziness I need right now, so I'm happy to see the change taking place finally, after having collected various pieces of the project for the past few months.  The safe haven of home is going to be that much sweeter and prettier, and the goal is to finish this part of it by Christmas.  Painting the swirls and stems of a few roses a day will be therapeutic this next month, and in the meantime, the soft white is soothing too.  

Thank you all for your kind words and prayers the past couple weeks.  ♥  I haven't had any nightmares the past two nights, which is huge.  And after working late the night before and racing around the morning of to finish making a sign to take with me, I did attend the peace rally in the park yesterday.  Security took away my sign before I could enter, telling me signs were not allowed, so I had arrived late for nothing after having made it.  Ah well, I made the effort, I attended, and now I will enjoy home and time off for another day.  Life is going on, and I remain determined to make it as sweet and good as I can, using cardboard signs, cans of paint, prayers, piles of books, hazelnut candles, wallpaper samples, and whatever else it takes. The back of my sign had simply read "Hang in there, Pittsburgh," and I will take my own advice. 

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