Monday, Monday

 

Happy Monday!! Are you excited that this is the last week of January? I am sorta. When I went out for a walk this morning, I felt like it is the first time I have visited everything and noticed all of the surprises. My mind has been on such other things for so long, I could believe how much has changed. Not anything you would notice if you weren't looking.

Our Raywood Ash trees have all of these little green baby leaves on them. With these lovely little red buds.
I was so surprised to see this already. I have heard the meadowlarks for two weeks. A sure sign that a change is coming. You know they really sing so pretty when it is raining.

Artichoke

The artichoke is going crazy already. Have you ever read that verse that talks about "Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself." I walk around and I see all of these plants, trees and bushes growing all by themselves. They just stay connected to the trunk, vine and root. I don't hear a single one saying, " I must grow fruit, or do I hear one saying, I am going to grow all on my own away from this root. 
Of course, which is what I do most of the time, I try to run off in my own direction, my own way and it isn't until I come back to the vine, because I have exhausted my hoard of resources.  You would think I would learn this by now. Life is so much smoother when I stay connected to the vinedresser. 

Large Nettle

 I couldn't believe all of the nettle that is already up this high. When I see nettle, my mouth waters. It only grows in areas that are high in iron. This time of year, I need iron. That is how I can tell. I know of no other tea that tastes as good to me as nettle tea. 

All of our mullein is growing too, I didn't take any pictures of that. That was what I always used when the kids were small if they had colds and coughs. It is an excellent expectorant. 

   I planted these in the fall. They are also good at a tea for colds and coughs. I have a herb book on my shelf that is full of recipes for different kinds of herbs for ways to treat different illnesses. Almost every recipe starts with Pot Marigolds. That is what they call these. 

Sweet Peas

 I had to show you how much my sweet peas are growing. I love seeing their little feelers out getting ready to start climbing. Here in California we have to plant sweet peas in the fall. It gets too hot for them by late May. Always on my birthday my favorite bouquet is sweet peas in a blue canning jar. 

Rug pattern by Cammie Bruce

 My rug for January. MY-ONLY-RUG! I hope to finish it this week so I can say I made something in January. Slacker that I am. It is so much fun to work with wool that I dyed myself and to do hearts this time of year. 

Thank you so much for all of your kind comments. I am so glad to be here in this place, right now.
Happy Monday!
  
~Kim~

The True way to render ourselves happy is to love our work and find in it our pleasure.----Francoise de Motteville

 

The Wedding Video

 

Here I go again.  Back in October, all of these plans had to be made. As you will see, it was a total surprise for the guests. I couldn't blog about it, I couldn't talk about it. It was so hard trying to do wedding preparations in secret. They went and did that first video in October.  I hadn't seen the first part of the video until at the wedding. I of course sat there thinking what totally amazing kids we have.  It turned out so pretty.
You can't even believe that is my front yard.

First, I want to show you my favorite picture so far.

I always want to break into song, " Secret Agent Man"

See how green our hills are now after all of the rain.

They thought all of this stuff and they accomplished their goals and I am very proud of them.   Here is the link. https://vimeo.com/152670773

They are having a blast in Orlando. I will be glad when they come home, as you know I miss them. They are a lovely couple and I am so blessed to not only have a wonderful son, but I think he has the most beautiful and talented wife. All I can say as Mrs Bennet said before me, " Mr. Bennet, God has been very, very good to us."
~Kim~

On their honeymoon

"You can't stay in your corner of the forest waiting for others to come to you. You have to go to them sometimes." (A.A. Milne)

Back To Normal---Whaterver That is!

 

Here I am, back to normal. Sort of. Everything is put away, packed away and cleaned up. Yesterday I figured out the best way to get to normal was to dye wool. There is nothing that I know of for me that gives me such joy is fooling around with dye pots, colors and wool. It is so dark today because of the fog. I couldn't get good pictures of the colors, but they did turn out yummy.

I bought Cammie Bruce's pattern Hearts. I wanted blue hearts so of course I had to dye lots of blue.

Primitive Junky

Blue really.

I love these colors!

It if was brighter outside you could see these wonderful yummy blues. I will cut it today to start hooking.

I also dyed some green.

I over dyed colors that I didn't use in the fall, which I think will be fun to use on the other patterns I bought two weeks ago.

I also spent yesterday going through my stash of embroidery thread. I have had  His Eye is on the Sparrow by Heartstring Samplery for a year. I decided back in December I was going to make it for 2016. I dyed my fabric yesterday too.

 

I had to really lighten this picture so you could see it, but it is a nice antique brown for this project. I thought about incorporating the 10 minute a day for this project. There are 38 pages to this pattern. It is a huge project. I have seen so many ladies accomplish it, so I know if I just work on it every day I can too. The hardest thing will be not looking at other patterns.

His Eye is on the Sparrow---Heartstring Samplery

I think this is just lovely. I love all of the designs in it and His Eye is on the Sparrow, is one of my favorite hymns.

I need to get back to my creative side. I have missed it. I can't believe we are at the middle of January and I don't have a single finished project. That is about to change I hope.

Have a wonderful Thursday,
~Kim~

By perseverance the snail reached the ark.---Charles Spurgeon

Just an Update.

 

For starters, Thank you so much for your words, your thoughts and prayers. This has been one of the hardest things I have done, I cried so much these last two weeks, if I had known what a nervous breakdown was I would have thought I was having one. Okay that aside.

The wedding was lovely in every way. Beautiful bride, handsome groom. Great food and lots and lots of terrific people. Making new friends and renewing old ones. We are very blessed and thankful.

 

William has been our clown, our humor, and as Makenzie's Grandmother says, " Our sweet William."
In his 26 years of life, we have barely had a cross word. When he told me he was picking songs for the Mother/Son dance. The first thing out of my mouth was, " Oh No William! No, I can't do that? I will cry in front of all of those people, and besides I am like a ox on the dance floor." He said it was too bad, but he wouldn't tell me what song.  So first thing after the vows and dinner was the mother/son dance.

The song he has picked by Johnny Cash was, " You are my sunshine." I was a wreck. William is taller than me by at least a foot and that is with heels. We both were crying. He was named after my Dad. My Dad was a big man too. In fact, as a little girl I thought in my little kid mind, that my Dad was bigger than God. William didn't know this as I had never told him, but when I was a little, little girl, my Dad would pick me up in his arms and dance around the room singing "You are my sunshine."  Later Ben said, " I saw you dancing with William and then I looked and Dad was crying, so I just turned and walked away I couldn't take it."

 

They did traditional as well as their own vows. Of course, Ron and I both cried through those too as did everyone in the place. But then at the end he said, " When I was about six years old, I read in Winnie-the-Pooh and from that time on I wanted to say that to the one I would marry, now I get to say this to Makenzie, "If you live to be a hundred, I want to live to be a hundred minus one day so I never have to live without you." I don't think there was a dry eye in the place.

 

Those are the sweet things, too many to count. I am more tired than I ever thought I could be, and there is still work to do. My house looks like a disaster area, the tent is picked up but there is still so much to do like unhooking power cables and all of that. I don't have any dishtowels left in my kitchen so of course I have to do laundry.
But I am very happy and proud. But so glad this thing is over. Now it can rain all it wants.
Thank you again so much for your thoughts and prayers. I couldn't have done it without you.
~Kim~

Makenzie's Dad giving her to William, Ron and I are looking on.

"Promise me you'll always remember: You're braver than you believe, and stronger than you seem, and smarter than you think."
---A.A. Milne