Valentines Day

Happy Valentines Day!!! I just love Valentines Day. It has changed a lot from when I would get those Valentines in the envelope on the front of my desk at school. But more on that later. I had my husband draw a name out of a basket before breakfast and the lucky winner is...Alica from Happily Married to...The Cows. So Alica if you send me your snail mail I will be mailing the heart thing I made. Thank you so much for entering I will have a give away for March. I hope you will have as much fun as I have.

I tried to explain to someone what love was, try it sometime it is really hard. Our society has made love about what you feel rather than what you do. Love is an action word and it requires so much to really make it work. When I was brand new married, I was looking through my Mom's cookbooks. She had a really old one and I picked it up and was looking through it. In it the lady told a story.
It seems that when she first got married and she would cook breakfast and then her husband would go out to tend to the farm and expect dinner on the table when he came in at noon. She found that being married was such hard work and such a grind and she hated living on a farm. As she thought about it she became very discontent with her life. She said the more she thought about it the more miserable she became.

It was almost dinner time and she just threw something together for her husband to eat. He didn't complain and she didn't say much but she knew she didn't love him anymore. That bothered her very much because it wasn't that long when he has swept her off of her feet, with his smile and his touch and his humor. In fact, in the story, she said, " She felt close to hatred for him now."

I was pretty startled reading this as a new bride and couldn't think of ever feeling that way about my wonderful, sweet husband, who always made me laugh. I continued to read.

Then she said that working on a farm is hard work, they had no near neighbors so they had to work together to take care of themselves. She said that afternoon she thought, since I don't love him anymore why don't I just act like I do. So she said, one thing her husband loved was cookies. She hadn't baked in a long time. She went out to collect the eggs and as she walked back she thought, I will just do one thing nice for him each day. So she made cookies. Her husband was so happy when he came in that night and they sat down to a better supper than she had provided for dinner. While she wasn't very talkative she wasn't as angry.

She said, that she did that and each day she did one nice thing and then she woke up one morning and she was madly in love again. Then she said, that love isn't about feeling but of the will. She went on to say that they had celebrated 50+ years of marriage and how happy she was now with her life.

I read that and it has stuck with me all of these years. There are many more times I think I am angry and mad and grumpy and all I have to do is one nice thing and my whole attitude changes. So when I think of love, life is more than just flowers and a box of chocolates. To me this says it best.

" To aim at loving instead of being loved requires sacrifice. Love reaches out, willing to be turned down or inconvenienced, expecting no personal reward, wanting only to give." (Elisabeth Elliot)

" Love is patient, love is kind, it does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs." ( 1 Corinthians 13: 4-5)

I tell Emilie and Nik how it will be and now they both look at me and at each other in total disbelief that they would ever think wrong of the other person. I smile and tell them why we never had a hand gun in the house. We thought we might get so mad as we used to that one of us would kill the other one. Yep it is true. Life is so much better now. :)

Have a lovely Valentines Day,
~Kim~

Today on Wednesday

The pear trees across the road are blooming. Silly trees. Don't they know it is too early? The trees all around me are budding and we are still having frost. I guess it will be an early spring.

I wish I had Emilie email me the picture she took at work yesterday. The flower shop she works for has a refrigerated sea train that sits behind the shop. The refrigerators are filled with flowers for Valentines Day inside the shop. She took a picture and inside that sea train as far as you can see there are hundreds and hundreds of vases filled with roses. I have never seen so many flowers in my life. She worked nine hours yesterday doing nothing but de-thorning roses. I knew it was a busy little shop I just had no idea.

This is the acacia tree that is blooming. I thought you might like a better look at it. The temps will be in the 70s this weekend so I expect more blooms.
My son brought this amazing cleaner he found. I have used so many things on my tile and the grout. I don't know how many square feet of tile floors but I have so much tile. Yesterday I thought I would start cleaning tile, on my hands and knees. I worked for six hours. I washed walls, windows, and doors. I cleaned baseboards and dusted furniture and vacuumed. Today, all I want to do is just stay in bed. I didn't know I could be sore in places I am sore in. My floors look fantastic though, I am only about 1/4 of the way done. I feel good about spring cleaning though. Okay all of that to get to my story.

I am a slow thinker. At the holidays I was asked this question: " Not for this to sound mean or anything but
being a stay at home mom, is that all you have done with your life?"  When I was asked, I just laughed, but my mind went blank. So now three months later I came up with an answer.
" This is what I would say now if I had the chance. " Yes, that is all I have done, but I have been the one who stayed at home so your kids had a safe place to go, to have food to eat and even sometimes spend the night so they weren't home alone. I am the one who sat and listened as they poured out their hearts and tried to work out problems in life. I am the one who watched your children grow up because all I did was stay at home."

I have thought about it a bunch because when I am on my hands and knees scrubbing floors, I wonder, is this important? I have had that thought a bunch since that question. Yesterday, I realized even if I could do it over again, would I make different choices? I wouldn't because I am so thankful for all of the things I might have missed.

I hope you have a great Wednesday. I am not hoping for a lot today, just trying to walk will be exciting. :)

Have a wonderful day,
~Kim~
 Here is the link for my giveaway if you still want to get in, I will draw names tonight.

February Giveaway and What I Made This Week.

I have been busy this week. It has been fun to have a bit of time to make things. I thought I would share a few of them.

This was fun, it was one of those things that just happened. I had a bunch of hearts I had been working on and they were sort of in this postion. I thought it looked cute so I grabbed a piece of wood and painted it and I thought it looked nice.

This one too. I have to tell you a story about the material with writing on it. I could swear to you that I saw this material at Wal Mart. I could see it in my head plain as day. I couldn't get it out of my mind. So one morning very early I went to Wal Mart. I walked up and down the yardage section and no material. I asked the lady who worked there " Did they have any more material with writing on it?" She looked at me like I was a nut. " She said, " What kind of writing?" I said, " you know, french cursive." She just stared at me and didn't even answer me just started watching some clerk doing something. So I walked out of there knowing I had seen it. For two days, I tried to place where I had seen it. I went to our local yardage store, and walked up and down aisles for a hour. Finally stuck away between some bolts of cloth was this fabric. It wasn't what I saw in my mind but it was kind of what I wanted so I bought it. I made hearts with it and they are my favorite. I do love this material and I may go back and buy some more. I was thinking of making pillows for my couch.

Here is another one. I just played and played with different patterns of hearts and this one looked okay. I am getting closer and closer to a etsy store can you tell?

This was what I wanted this material for originally. I thought it would look so pretty with a stack of hearts and the key. I couldn't get it out of my mind.

Now on to the February give away. This is my favorite design to make. I keep mine on my doors most of the year. In the summer when my sunflowers are blooming I like to keep fresh flowers hanging on my door.
I keep moss in it and keep it a little wet and the flowers stay fresh. I also like spring flowers and it looks very pretty.

Here it is with flowers.

I painted it and distressed it and then put a crackle finish on it and put walnut stain on it so it does look like it has been in an old woodpile but it hasn't. So if you want to be entered into my giveaway for February just leave your name and say you do even if you have won before or I have sent you something. You can be entered in, Even if you live in Canada, :) Or anywhere else.

I will pick a winner on Valentines Day. I know that is a short amount of time but I am trying to give something away each month, well as long as I can so I need to get cracking on March.

So thank you for entering.

~Kim~

Odds and Ends

These are Acacia Blooms. The first thing that blooms around here. I was surprised to see this tree blooming so soon. It looks pretty when there is so little blooming right now.

I had a thought about what love is since Valentines Day is on Thursday. I was watching my husband and I thought I would share the way I think love is to me.

My husband gives up his work space for trays and trays of  what will be flowers for Emilie's and Nik's wedding. He keeps a watch on it all and checks things before he goes to work in the morning and when he gets home at night. He makes sure that the kids cars have tires and are in working order and then quietly while they are still in bed takes their cars to get new tires.

He keeps our pasture plowed and my walking path clean so I have a nice place to walk every day. Without me ever saying a word, I might add.

I know you can't see very well in this picture but he is two pastures away plowing the far neighbors pasture.
When the crash came in 2008 the oil companies across the road stopped taking care of the property across the street. That is why we get tumbleweeds so bad. Tumbleweeds are nothing but pollen and seeds. I am so allergic to them every year I get sicker and sicker. So now he plows the pastures around us so I can breathe. Watching him makes me want to cry. I know there are so many other things he would rather do than take care of other peoples property but because of his love for me he does it without complaint.

 I learn so much from his quiet love. I have come to respect so much how he lives his life. Always to make other people's life easier. Here and at work. So to me when I think of love I think of the sacrifice that is made daily for me. We had a game when we first got married and we have tried to live it now almost 33 years. We wanted to see if we could out give each other. I would never admit this to him but I think he won. He out gives me every single day.

This is how it has been today, at My Field of Dreams. I hope you are having a nice Sunday.

Thanks for stopping by today,
~Kim~