Rugs I finished

I have a few rugs to show you that I finished this weekend. Of course the edges aren't finished because hooking isn't so bad in the heat but holding the rug in my lap to finish the edges it just too much. I mean I am already a sweat factory.

This pattern is from the book Garden Gate Threads. The design is done by Maggie Bonanomi. It is called Mother Earth.

This is the 1820 Sunflower. The pattern is from Cathy Greschner designer. Her blog is The Orangesink.
Her selling site is Red House Wool Studio. She is one of my favorite designers and my favorite thing is the little note she sends when you buy a pattern. I keep them all.

I also made time this weekend to finish little Miss Fancey Blackett. I think up all kinds of stories in my head of the adventures of Fancey Blackett and the butter churn. I really did enjoy the little sunflowers. Since I really don't have that many in my garden it is just as fun to stitch them.

When my kids were young one of my favorite authors to read aloud for them was Bill Peet. He was a early illustrator for Walt Disney. His work is distinctive once you know it in the old movies like Dumbo. I always enjoyed reading his books aloud and he had a couple of stories with little witches. I always enjoyed them and Fancey here reminds me of some of them.

The current rug I am working on is from the book Pumpkin Patch Threads. The design is by Renee Nanneman. I don't normally hook like this I prefer to hook the background as I go so I am not doing miles and miles of background but for some reason I did it that way this time. I am kind of glad as it is mindless and I can talk to people as I work.

It is so nice to be working on fall again. I just love the colors of fall. I can't wait to finish this one and then all I have left to finish before I draw new patterns is my whale by Polly Minick. If feels so nice to get my shelves cleared off of old projects. Thank you for taking the time out of your day to visit my blog and look at my work.

Have a great week.
~ Kim~

Last Sunday In July

If I had my druthers I would be here. Instead I am here at home in front of the computer. Listening to the sound of the computer humming quietly at my side. I need to be outside watering my garden, and taking care of the chickens.

I have been thinking about my lack of faith and my lack of trust. I told my husband that so often my walk with God is like a person being water-boarded. Sometimes I feel like God has me by the scruff of the neck and He holds my head underwater until I bubble and then brings me up again to submerge me once again and finally, in weakness I give up.

Today as I was searching for an answer that I need to have and wanting to run away. I found this:

" Our perspective is so limited. We keep forgetting that God's love does not show itself only in protection from suffering. It is of a different nature altogether. His love does not hate tragedy. It never denies reality. It stands firm in the teeth of suffering. The love of God did not protect His Son from death on a cross. That was proof of His love, through "legions of angels" might have rescued Him. He will not necessarily protect us---not from anything it takes to make us like Jesus. A lot of hammering and chiseling and purifying by fire will have to go  into the process. Through it all we learn to trust Him in every little thing."
(Be Still My Soul---Elisabeth Elliot p.34)

I think of anything it is my own cowardice that causes me to shrink back. My own will that wants what I want right now and not waiting to see the beauty that will unfold if I will just trust and obey. To enjoy the journey instead of running ahead. I think the worst part of pain though, is playing the" what if game." I think that makes any trial worse than the actual trial. God is trying to teach me something. Trying to correct a flaw in the core of my nature and character. I am afraid. I must stop the "what if's" and face the enemy and like always before I will find the lion has no teeth.

And though I might wish I were here. The real fact is I am not and I must conquer what lies in me and be what I should be instead of the coward that I am.

Have a lovely Sunday and I will look for all of the joys I can find. Like my two year old grand daughter finding a downy feather in the grass and taking it to her Mother and saying, " Look, Mom, a butterfly leaf."
Joy is found in the little things the come in upon us in the dark.

~Kim~

Peaches

On Wednesday, I had my day all planned out. After I worked in the garden, I was going to finish up some of the things I have been working on, then I was going to take a book, my sunglasses, my towel and swim and read my book. I was going to put on some tunes and just have a vacation day. Then this happened.

Peaches!!! lots of peaches.

More peaches

I hardly made a dent. I peeled peaches for 4 hours and I only got 5 gallons of them in the freezer. I maybe have three times as much as this on the tree still. Not to mention I have two full trees of nectarines and a fall peach that is ripe around fair time in September.I made a peach cobbler in the midst of peeling these peaches.


I am so sloppy even though I try not to be after I finished I had to mop the kitchen. So by the time I was finished cleaning up it was almost time to cook dinner. Did I do a single thing I planned. Nope, but I didn't feel too bad because I know when the cold winds blow outside. I can take a bit of sunshine out of the freezer and remember the taste of summer.

One of the summer projects I made for myself, was to read the books by Elisabeth Goudge. I don't expect many people to know who she is her most famous book is called Green Dolphin Street. They made that one into a movie a long time ago. The book I am reading right now is called The Scent of Water. I will look for this one to buy. I love it when I find a book as I turn the page I find treasure every where. I find myself just gasping because of the beauty of her prose. Here is a sample.

" She drove on, for time was passing, She came out presently on high g round and looked down over the great plain and across it to the far line of blue hills. She saw a city, so alchemized by distance and blue air that it's towers and spires seemed drifting on the plain like the vision of Lyonesse that is seen floating out to sea. Between her and the city she saw villages and farmsteads and the gleam of silver where river and stream wound through the water meadows. Against the steep slopes below her apple blossom broke like spray."  (The Scent of Water, pg.33)

It is as my husband says, " One of those books your Mom likes, all they do in that book is walk around and talk to people." Well, it is only someone who loved people could have written a book about joy around every corner. That is what I love to see the tiny things and find the magic in life.

Time to go take care of the small things like Sasha and the chickens and play in the garden. Along with all of the other mundane things I do but am reminded to look for the beauty I can find therein. Have a lovely Thursday,
~Kim~

In The Garden

"Of all the wonderful things in the wonderful universe of God, nothing seems to me more surprising than the planting of a seed on the blank earth and the result thereof."
---Celia Thaxter---

This morning, was a magical kind of morning in the garden. Today the pressures of life seemed far away and being out in the garden is a wonderful place of joy.

I find myself being drawn in and the peace that I find in a garden always surprises me and catches me off guard.

I have such a white fly problem, that I decided it was war.  I think the most amazing product I have ever used is Dawn dish washing detergent. I was skeptical  that the soap suds would work, because I always used Ivory. Being over a barrel, and wanting pumpkins and the white flies are just destroying my blooms I had read to use Dawn. Yesterday I fixed up my first batch. I dutifully sprayed behind each and every leaf and then the poor blooms. I didn't expect much. Last evening, as I walked around, those white flies were dead. My plants even looked a little bit happier. One of the things I read was you have to keep doing it to kill the life cycle of the white fly. I fixed up another batch this morning and sprayed them again.

When we planted all of the boxes of flowers for Em's wedding, we planted petunias and nasturtiums. After the wedding we just moved the boxes out by my garden and I water them every morning. I was reading yesterday and it seems squash beetles do not like petunias and nasturtiums. I knew about marigolds but not them. I hope they work to keep those squash beetles at bay. I haven't used pesticide yet on my garden so I keep looking for other ways to battle pests. I think as in health the best way with people and plants is to keep the plant healthy so it can fight disease.

"For to have complete satisfaction from flowers you must have time to spend with them.
There must be rapport. I talk to them and they talk to me." 
 ---Princess Grace of Monaco---

This year I love the size of my garden. I find myself already planning a garden next year. That is a total first for me. I find myself wanting to make the garden of my dreams and to make a living patchwork quilt of design. You have no idea how hard it is for me to stay small and manageable.  My husband calls me " to the brim Kim." My sister says, " Why do you always have to push the envelope."  I don't know except I am really trying to curb that and enjoy manageable. I think as  it is though, I have always liked" if a little is good, more is better. " 

Have a great Tuesday. Off to fill my day to the brim.

~Kim~

Monday

Just a Monday post. Not much going on here. I spent a good long time out in the garden fertilizing and watering and spaying soap on white flies. Then I fertilized all of my hydrangeas.

Last week I had to dead head all of my hydrangeas.  The heat of the summer is really getting to them this year. It is one of the hardest things I do in the summer is remove all of the blooms. They are such nice plants and when I think of all of the years before that I tried and tried to grow them this makes me so happy.

My to do list, it very long today. So I will stop here. I hope this a nice week for you. As we are racing towards August.

Blessings from me to you,
~Kim~

Mid Summer in July

Yesterday was my fourth year blog anniversary. I went to collect stats so I could brag a bit and I found that a porn site was using my blog to bounce from. I was so upset and sat on Google to try and get it off that by the time I got off the computer I just didn't know if I wanted to blog anymore. I know they will disappear just like they appeared but still it is the idea.

I worked in my garden and my flowerbeds for the two days it was under 100. I knew I had a very, very small window or by the time it cools down again it would look like the amazon out there.

 Oh by the way, these photos today are from a year ago on this day in July. I don't have any sunflowers that have blooms yet. I was working in my garden this week and I have decided I am going to keep my garden this small next year. It is lovely to be able to work the whole thing and just play and not feel like I am doing a sprint for hours and hours. Like Goldilocks, this one is just the right size. I will just organize it better. Like a patchwork quilt.

I have hooked and stitched a bit this week. Oh and read books. I haven't gone to the library since last November. When I did though, I picked up 14 books on Friday. As I was going to the car, I thought " what in the heck am I doing, I don't have time to read these books!!" It has been nice though to read in the evenings. When my hand just says, " No More!!"

I buy a lot of patterns from Pineberry Lane. She did a series with this little witch named Fancey Blackett.
This one I am working on is called Fancey Blackett and The Butter Churn.

So on the days it is too hot to sit with a wool rug on my lap, I have been doing a little stitching. These little motifs just make me smile the whole time I am stitching. I would like to do the whole little series.

It wasn't until I put my 1820 Sunflower down on the carpet that I saw I was using the same color wool for my back ground that is on my carpet. I thought that was so funny. I guess I like that color. But I did something you should not do. I thought I had enough to finish up the background and I ran out. Completely Out. I went through every single bag of wool worms in this house and did not have enough to finish this. I was so mad at myself. Now I have to order more before I am done. I bought this pattern from my favorite pattern maker Cathy at Red House Wool Studio.

I decided I needed to finish up those rugs I started before the wedding now. If I get to hook today, I am hoping to finish this one up.

Taking a break from this one is what I needed. I love this one now. In fact I worked way longer than my dumb hand wanted. It was complaining so much about it that I just ignored it. Weeding and sewing and hooking is just too much for my hands. Life is just too short to listen to my body complain. I said to my hand. " Hand, you can just complain all you want because you can rest when I am dead." I can't wait until I get that new body that is promised to me. I will run and not get weary. Not to mention, I won't have to eat in heaven unless I want to, and I think that will be awesome.

So just a bit of odds and ends. Heat will be back now I think until after our fair now which is at the end of September. I hope you have a great rest of the week and your weekend is just fantastic.

Bye for now,
~Kim~

A Break in The Weather

We have two days of cooler weather. 99 and 98 it is heaven out there the light this morning is filled with gold. Every thing turns such to a warm and inviting place. After the heat and then we have these kinds of days, I am so thankful to live here.

I was going out the back door and I turned for some reason, ( Maybe to call Sasha) and as I looked back this is what I saw.

All of the warm light flooding the room. I thought that I just love it when the light looks like that.
Then I turned and saw my friend the rooster. He has eyes now, but I still haven't made his clothes yet. I have hit a mental road block when it comes to these chickens, but here in Mr. Rooster, sans clothes.

Here is a better shot of his sunglasses. He was out by the pool for a little bit and now that he has eyes, he is really happy with his sunglasses.

 

His honey is a little upset that she doesn't have sun glasses or sleeves on her dress. 

She was a bit afraid of a wardrobe malfunction right before the photo was snapped.

 

I have blooms on the pumpkins now. In fact, I need to be out there chopping weeds. Instead of being on the computer.

 

Here is the finished propagation chamber for the cuttings that Ron is trying to get to root. 

I wanted to get a shot of the water spaying in a mist over them to keep them moist. 

He got his Arduino programmed this weekend so now the water is automatic and comes on once a hour in the morning and starting at 2:00 P.M. the water comes on every half hour. It is so nice to look out there and see the other trees he has on mist to see it in the afternoon, but it is even better to go out there and stand under it. Now I think his grafts and cuttings will be much happier.  

Just a few things going on around here. We were in the pool the other night and Sasha started acting funny like something was in the yard. Sure enough, not even full dark and a skunk was up by the swimming pool rooting around for bugs like they do. They don't like light. We turned on the pool light the porch light and the lights we have for ambiance. Ron got a flash light and the skunk did what it does and fired a warning shot over the bow. Thankfully we were not in the line of fire. It got the garage. Now we have to do a perimeter  check every time we go out in the yard if the sun is down. I am so glad the skunk is little and is not a Bigfoot.

Have a great Tuesday, now to chop weeds.

~Kim~

Monday Morning

It could have just been my imagination. This morning when I went outside I thought I noticed the faint change in the feel and the smell of summer. I am always alert for the first glimpse that summer will change day by day. Already I noticed this morning that the sun has changed and it was dark when I first awoke. It no longer comes in the furthermost spot of my front windows. It starts making it journey back down to Bear Mountain. I can't tell you why that gave me hope but it did. Even though I know I have many, many days left of over 100 degree temperatures.

Change comes like that, sometimes, quietly, simply. As I learn to live in this next part of life, a new season seems to emerge. When I first went from being single to married, that was a incredible change in giving up what I thought was me to become us. Then when each baby came we became a family. Then as each of the kids began to grow up to want to fly and then they returned to bring first the person who made them go from being one and then two and then they brought children who added more zest and life and happiness and of course tears and testing and trusting. They all began to be in their own families, themselves.  When I first welcomed three grandsons in this world in three days, We still had a 10 year old at home. Life has been so full.

Last weekend all of the boys and Emilie and Nik took a day trip to the beach. For the first time again. It was just us after 33 years we were home alone. I think this will happen more and more often now. I am so thankful that we have spent those years working on our relationship and have always been each others best friend. I am thankful for the laughter and even when the BBQ caught on fire and flames where shooting out the back and we torched the fancy steaks I had bought for the romantic dinner for two I had planned. The baked potatoes were great.

So life still has surprises, it is still filled with dreams. It still reminds me  that life is made for living and in the still quiet that seems to be around me more and more, life is still a blessed gift and as I learn to make friends with silence and being me more than us or we. It isn't a bad place just a different place to live this place of joy.

But in the meantime, there is laundry to wash, floors to mop, and lots of work that to me has become sort of a holy time as I reflect on the passing of time.

Have a lovely Monday,
Kim~

Do You Ever Wonder?

Do you ever wonder if like that movie called " The Truman Show,"  if we live in a sitcom?
I really do leave the house and I don't have adventures every time I leave and it isn't always at the grocery store. But I seem to blog about that all of the time. Maybe I should write a book called " Me and the Grocery Store"  Just an aside, my first crib was in the back room of a grocery store because my parents owned one and I got engaged in the back room, so it is true. Lots of things have happened in them.

I went to the grocery store and like always my cart was loaded down.  I had stuff piled everywhere. When I left the store to go out to the parking lot there is this downward incline. It is pretty sharp. I always have to brace my feet to keep the basket from running away down the hill. I thought I had things pretty solidly packed and as I started down the slope, a 12 pack of soda fell off and hit the ground and as much soda is spraying on the road at least 4 cans must have broke. I groaned and walked in front of the basket and picked up the 12 pack and took it to a pole by the sidewalk so the thing could quit spraying. Soda was running into the street and making a giant puddle. Hot and sticky mess.

I walked just a couple of feet more and the case of water falls off in the road. By this time I am just wanting to get to my car, so I just grabed the case of water and throw it in the top of my cart. I smashed the bread but I don't care. I notice a Coca-Cola guy walking towards me and I stopped him and told him about the 12 pack and asked him if he could just take it in the store I will come back and get some more. You know those times when you wonder if you are speaking in code? I kept explaining to him what happened, he kept saying " what? what?" Finally the lights came on and he says " Okay, okay." As I thought about it later, poor guy there he is minding his own business and this crazed loony woman accosts him in the parking lot talking about spilled soda."

I start pushing my cart out of the street to my car, when this very pretty lady stops me and she says, " I saw the whole thing, I am so glad I saw it, because it happens to me every single time I come here and I watched you and it made me feel so good to see it happen to someone else and realize I am not the only one." She was smiling and giggling and she said, "You just made my day"  I pushed on to my car and I was talking to myself like some crazy lady, saying, " I am so glad I made someone's day. " That is when I start thinking, I bet I really am in some kind of sitcom and the canned laughter is all around me.

I really, really didn't want to go back inside but my son had asked me specifically to get him that soda. I locked my car back up and walked back in the store and the manager, Rose was standing there watching me. She said, " Go on back and get your soda. " I said, " Oh you know about it?" She said" that the driver I talked to in the parking lot told her and they would get credit." I walked back grabbed it and as I walked to the front, she told me to just go on out she would hold the door so no one would stop me. I told her thank you and went on my merry way. As I drove, I really did pray that my next stop would be very uneventful and quiet and I could get my things and just get home. Nothing happened.

I always wonder if things like this happen to other people or am I just the idiot that stuff happens too all of the time. But then maybe there is a place that says, " Oh look, Kim needs to write a blog post.?

I will leave out the bank visit. It involves a ATM machine and well, you know time to stop.

Have a great Weekend,
~Kim~

7th Most Miserable City in the U.S.

This morning, I read that my town ranks 7th as the most miserable city in the U.S. I know it has been hot and all of that stuff, but really? I wondered who they interviewed.

Right up there with the jabs from Hollywood it seems Gallup polls are getting into the action. It makes me laugh. Somebody always knows someone from Bakersfield. I think one of the neatest stories was I have a friend who lives in England. I had mailed her a box for her birthday. She wasn't home when they delivered it so the postman left it with the neighbors next door. She told me later that she went next door and knocked on the door to get her package and the neighbors came to the door all smiling and happy and asked her whom did she know in Bakersfield? She told them and they told her how they had lived here.

It is a giant melting pot filled with lots and lots of people. Bakersfield is now one of the only cities in California that is coming out of the recession not broke. Our Governor, Mr. Jerry Moonbeam Brown if he had his way would wipe us off the map. He hates Bakersfield and makes no bones about it.

One of the things I love about it is when Laura Bush was working to get the Karren People out of Burma because they were being tortured and stuff by the generals in that country. We have a large population of Burmese people who have made this their home.  I had the wonderful joy and privileged of being invited to the New Year Celebration. Me and my family were a few of the white people invited and to be introduced to their food and their culture. Sometimes I think we need a tiny statue of liberty standing at our county line because we have so many people that come here yearning to be free.

 So of course, when I read that we are the 7th most miserable I wonder about that. My family came here because of the dust bowl and because of WW ll but it is home and I am thankful this is where I live. Though I might have to move soon for the boys to find wives. My son came home from college to tell me about this girl he met. " He said, " I thought maybe I should come home and ask you her name before I went any further because I was thinking I might be related to her. " I asked what her name was and he told me and I said, " Yep, she is your cousin." So maybe it is time to branch out.

Have a great Thursday,
~Kim~

Wednesday Words

We have a supposedly cooler day today. Maybe even some rain tomorrow. Not counting on it as rain seems to always pass us by, do you remember in the old show Get Smart and the cone of silence? That is what is always over us and storms just go around us. There is a fancy word for it but I just can't remember it.

One of the words I have always wanted to embrace about life is to be content. No matter the place I find myself, I have always wanted to be content. I am not though. I also find myself not seeing the beauty all around me nor the little things that bring joy. I did something that I was curious about, I went back to a year ago in my journal and looked at life in 2012. No wonder I feel like I have been through a war. I only tell you little bits of the trials that go on and sometimes I think I blab too much. I was shocked at how many trials we were going through at the same time last year at this time.

Now though, being on this side of them. What I can tell you is that God never failed. I did all of the time, I fell down, I didn't want to get up again and I really over and over did not think I could make it one more day.
What I see now though was when God allowed the worst things I could have ever thought to happen to us, I can see how loving and kind God was now. When I felt like He only said, " Will you trust me," over and over, and I cried and said, " NO I Don't Trust You. I want you Lord to go away." He didn't, He has always promised, " To never leave me nor forsake me." He didn't.
 I knew I was being a baby, but I was so angry at God, I could feel my heart growing hard. That was more scary to me than the trial.

I think that is what I think I love about believing in a God who doesn't change nor does He lie. No matter how mad I was I could pick up His word and He would give me words of comfort and strength and even though I didn't understand why and maybe not even now but I do know that my faith in an Unseen God is stronger than it would have been if I had not been wounded because what needed to come out was junk that needed to be dealt with and handled.

I told you that last year, my word was relinquishment. I gave up what He asked of me even though I know in a spiritual sense He had to break my hot little hands for me to give it back to Him. This year, the word is Surrender. Again, I don't want my word for the coming year to be surrender but in order for me to surrender I had to relinquish what I did love more that God. I see that now.

  I have lived on a July schedule for so long with the kids and school I find that I still do and it is easier for me to plan my year that way. So as I surrender this year. I am thankful that going through trials as I learned last year didn't make me love God more, but it did make me have a more solid kind of faith. I learned that trusting sometimes is harder than believing. Walking by faith and not sight sometimes tests every single thing I have ever believed and I am I can say, I am  thankful that God knew me and I knew Him that when I came out on the other side, we would still be friends.

Thank you, I know this is a long kind of post. Without your kind words and friendship, sometimes your words were such a lifeline. I thank you from the bottom of my heart.

~Kim~