Small and Wonderful Things . . .

 

"The world is fairly studded and strewn with pennies cast broadside from a generous hand. But who gets excited by a mere penny?...It is dire poverty indeed when a man is so malnourished and fatigued that he won't stoop to pick up a penny. But if you cultivate a healthy poverty and simplicity, so that finding a penny will literally make your day, then, since the world is in fact planted with pennies, you have with your poverty bought a lifetime of days. It is that simple. what you see is what you get." ~Anne Dillard

A few of the small and wonderful things which bring untold joy into my life. It's the small things in life which truly mean the most. Simple abundance . . . it's the best.   

 

Being able to have my sister, Dan and dad over for Sunday supper in my own little home. What a great blessing.  Its so nice to finally be near my family, and to be able to do things as a family. We are in a bubble so its allowed. Us four.  Longing for the day when our bubble can open up to include a few others.  I see things in England, Spain, etc. opening up.  We just need to be patient for a tiny while longer. 

 

 

The doyenne of my dining room table.  She reigns supreme.  I love my lemon table mats/placemats. Amazon for the mats.  I need some taller glasses, but these will do for now.  We feasted on pork chops, potatoes, vegetables and fluffy key lime pie. 

 

This bird was at the feeder yesterday, gobbling up the seed that had been scattered on the ground. I am not sure what kind of bird it is. 

 

There is a bit of a yellow patch at the front of it. It looks a bit like a Thrush of some sort.  

Its quite a distinctive bird.

 

 

I do recognize the red-winged black bird. That is a very pointy beak don't you think! 

 

I am loving all of the wild life here at my little cottage home.  I know, its not really a cottage, but it feels like a cottage to me.  Yesterday this little fella filled up his cheeks with peanuts not two feet away from me. Not afraid in the least.  Chipper.

Neither is Monsieur Le Squirrel.  Mr Nutter Butter.  He's the reason there is so much seed on the ground.  So although it is a bit of a nuisance, its also a blessing because I am getting to see some of the larger birds.  There was cardinals and two kinds of woodpeckers also. I need to get some more feeders before next winter rolls along. 

 

 

This arrived the other day and I am going to enjoy going through all of the recent conference addresses and writing down my thoughts and impressions on each one. I love studying the conference talks. When you are first listening to them, you may take notes, etc. but you miss so much when you are doing so. I am not a fast writer. So it is nice to be able to go over them again and take a more in depth look at each one.  

 

The curtain rod in the living room is up so now I can get busy with making the curtains.  Yay! I've been sitting here in the dark most nights because I don't want people to be able to see into my house.  Its a privacy thing.

 

This smells wonderful.  Its a soy candle and made in Canada. I think we should support industries that are in our own countries if we can.  Home grown products.  As Martha would say, its a good thing.

 

My sister gave me these.  They were mom's.  Mom was the top selling Avon lady in Nova Scotia, if not the Maritimes, at one time. She won lots of prizes and awards.  These were Christmas gifts for Team Leaders from the Avon company and they depict Mrs Albee, Avon's first representative.  They are woven pictures in silk and rayon, loom artistry from the stuios of J & J Cash ltd. in the UK.  Mom loved these pictures and I will take good care of them, so much so that they can be a heirloom for one of her great granddaughters or even great great granddaughters.  Who knows! 

My life is rich and  bountiful at the moment. I am in a season of abundance.  Joy, peace, good health, love  . . .  all is well.

A thought to carry with you  . . . 

° * 。 • ˚ ˚ ˛ ˚ ˛ •
•。★★ 。* 。
° 。 ° ˛˚˛ * _Π_____*。*˚
˚ ˛ •˛•˚ */______/~＼。˚ ˚ ˛
˚ ˛ •˛• ˚ ｜ 田田 ｜門 ★

 *.˛.My mission in life is not merely to survive,

but to thrive and to do so with some passion,

some compassion,  some humor and some style.

~Maya Angelou  •。★★ 。* 。•。★★ 。* 。 

 

This was dessert yesterday.  Fluffy Key Lime Pie. No bake. No fuss. No muss.  It was delicious actually!  Only four ingredients not counting the ready made crust and one of them is boiling water.  

I  hope you have a beautiful day and a beautiful week filled with many small and wonderful blessings.  Along the way, don't forget! 

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And I do too.

Sunday morning ponderings . . .

 

 

I saw this little cartoon/illustration on Pinterest this morning and I love it. Today's grub/caterpillar is tomorrow's butterfly.

When I was a young child I loved the story of the Ugly Duckling.  In this famous story by Hans Christian Anderson, a duck grows up feeling ugly and unworthy only to discover at the end that he wasn't a duck after all, he was a swan. 

 

He had spent his whole life judging and berating himself based on the opinions of ducklings and other farmyard animals that surrounded him, only to discover in the end that he was much more than a duck.

There are some really simple lessons to be found in this ordinary story.  One of them is that we should never discriminate against another person, judging them by their physical appearance or seemingly lack of achievement. Another is that we should not give up on following our passions or living our dreams, based on what we perceive as society's judgement on us. 

Another lesson, is to just love yourself.  We were not all meant to be the same, nor would I want to be the same as everyone else around me.  Comparison is always the thief of joy. Beauty and worth come in many disguises, shapes and sizes.  

We are all unique and composed of all the stories our lives have told.  The good, the bad, the ugly and the beautiful and everything in between. Therein lies the beauty of and the secret to having a happy life.   The things in life which we feel we could have done without, the hard parts, the ugly parts, they are all a part of what has shaped us into who we are. 

Nobody is you-er than you and you wouldn't be you without them. Struggles are strengthening, shaping and can help to mold us into better people, stronger people, people who are like the cream that rises to the top of the milk. 

None of us are meant to be ordinary, unless that is what we seek to be, and that's okay if it is.  But I think that there is a great worth and beauty found also in the ordinary. 

 

We can all bloom where we are planted.

Sometimes you have to go through the bad times to become

the you that you were meant to be.

"If you want the rainbow, you have to deal with the rain first."

Today I am embracing the me that is uniquely me.  I like me.  And all that life has thrown at me has served to shape a me that is unique  in my very own and beautiful way. The good and the bad are just a balance of the story our lives will one day be, of what our lives are meant to be.

 There is an ever present goodness of God in the ordinary details of our lives.

Especially in the ordinary details of our lives.

 

A field of weeds, or a field of promises and wishes.  Its all in how you look at it.

I had the unexpected pleasure of having supper with my sister, Dan and dad last night.  She had made swiss steak. It was good. Best of all it was good to be with family. I do enjoy my own company and am quite happy on my own most of the time, but sometimes it is just nice to be with others.  Today they are coming here for supper. I'm really looking forward to seeing them. I think dad is going to come a bit earlier and finish watching the movie we started the other day.  

Unexpected pleasures are beautiful gifts.

I was up early this morning to watch church in the UK.  I will be really sorry when they start having normal church again.  I have enjoyed this special blessing of being able to watch these UK services, of being able to see and commune with familiar faces, the faces and hearts of these people I loved for so long. I know it is not forever, but I am grateful that for a time I can be there still.

It is a special comfort. 

I will leave you with a thought for today now. I've kind of run out of things to say! 

° * 。 • ˚ ˚ ˛ ˚ ˛ •
•。★★ 。* 。
° 。 ° ˛˚˛ * _Π_____*。*˚
˚ ˛ •˛•˚ */______/~＼。˚ ˚ ˛
˚ ˛ •˛• ˚ ｜ 田田 ｜門 ★

*.˛.And as she fell apart,

her shattered pieces began to bloom,

blossoming until she became herself

exactly as she was meant to be.

~ Becca Lee•。★★ 。* 。•。★★ 。 

 

In The English Kitchen today  . . . Brown Bread Muffins.  Much easier and quicker to make than traditional brown bread and every bit as delicious!

Have a great Sunday!!  Don't forget! 

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⊰✿░G░O░D⊰✿⊰L░O░V░E░S⊰✿⊰░Y░O░U░⊰✿
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And I do too! 

 

Saturday This and That . . .

   

What a busy week I have had.  I can only imagine how much busier it will get once lockdown ends. My days are full and my cup is overflowing with good things, none of which I take for granted. 

I have watched the Friends Reunion and enjoyed every minute of it.  Friends was not a program I got to watch the first time around.  The man I was married to at the time did not like programs like that.  True story, I did not watch a full episode of Friends until about five years ago.  I fell in love with it and have watched the full series at least five times since then from start to finish. 

Watching the reunion was sweet and bittersweet at the same time.  It was kind of sad to see what 17 years does to people age wise, yet at the same time it was nice to see that the show meant as much to them as it did to us.  Anyways, I truly did enjoy the reunion.  It was perfect and they are right, you could not do a normal reunion show for this iconic series because it would mean unravelling the happy ending we were all given when the show ended.  And, I don't know about you, but I would not like that one bit. I like to think that everyone lived happily ever after. 

 

This little guy has been visiting me every day a few times a day. He is not afraid of me at all.  He sits on the front veranda, looking at my window until I notice him.  Then I open the door and throw out a few peanuts for him which he starts to eat in front of me.  He doesn't appear to be afraid of me at all.  You can sort of see his stuffed cheeks here.  He's so cute!!  

 

My dad wanted to come over and watch a movie with me yesterday. He doesn't have Netflix. He did have once upon a time, but he couldn't figure it out. He paid for it for a few years, but never watched anything, so he cancelled it. He knows I have Netflix and Prime, so he wanted to come and watch a movie.  I thought that was great!

We started off with one movie that wasn't very good.  Then we started to watch Stand By Me, but he didn't really like that either. He wanted a romantic comedy so we settled on As Good As It Gets.  He was happy with that. 

In the meantime my sister was starting to panic a bit. She got home from work and was calling his house and wasn't getting an answer, nor was he answering his mobile phone.  So she ended up texting me to see if I had heard from him. 

He had left the house with what he thought was his mobile phone, but was his house phone.  He had it in his pocket, but of course it wouldn't work that far from home and his mobile was at his house.  Anyways, she was relieved to find out he was a.o.k. 

I probably should have let her know he was at my place just so she didn't worry. I didn't think about it,  but if it happens again (and I hope he will come again) I will let her know.

 

I spent some time yesterday defending my home against the onslaught of insects.  I picked up one of these at Home Hardware. a few nights ago when I was getting into bed I noticed a ton of ants (maybe 6, lol) walking across my bedroom floor.  I hardly slept all night thinking about them crawling into bed with me. I had put ant traps out in the garden earlier in the week. The soil is really sandy here and so there were a lot of ant holes.  Obviously it was beyond the capacity of a few ant traps.

I remembered Pam saying she used this and so I saw it when I went to the store to get some ant killer.  I thought to myself, this will do nicely and picked it up. 

Ants be gone.  And anything else that crawls. 

 

 

This darling boy turns 46 today.  Yep, that's my Anthony on his first birthday.  He was such a cutie pie and still is. We have just had a facetime together, and it was lovely.  I can't wait until things open up and we can spend real time together as a family.  He says he will cook us a turkey dinner here at my place, and I said I will let him!  It will be great! 

Oh how very much I love this son of mine who turned me into everything I ever wanted to be, a mother!  He is also responsible for turning me into a grandmother! 

He is the gift that keeps on giving.  Love you son! Happy Birthday!! 

 

I had a lovely facetime with my friend Tina last night. Tina and I both moved into the Chester Ward in the UK about the same time. I think I had moved back to the Chester Ward about six months before she did.  I can remember seeing her in church the first Sunday she went. She was there with her daughter, Tony having stayed behind in Australia to tie up loose ends. I remember introducing myself to her and thinking afterwards, I think we are going to become friends. You know, you just have that feeling.  I was right. We became fast friends and had ten lovely years to develop that friendship.  She always just felt like family to me.  I don't know how I would have been able to manage what I had to manage without her at the end of my stay there.  She was my shoulder to cry on, an incredible source of strength and support and Tony as well.  I will forever be grateful for all that they did to help me.  Some people might have bailed when they found out what was going on. Not them. They stepped up to the plate and said what can we do, and then went above and beyond.  They were the Saviour's ears and hands and feet.  I am so grateful for this dear friend of mine and knowing that we will always be friends, no matter what.  

God puts some people in your life for a season, and he puts others in for eternity. She is an eternal friend. 

And with that I best leave you with a thought for today.  I am late in getting this finished and I have a ton of things to do.  Sorry this is a Quiche, or as some people would say, a quicky! Cindy, Dan and dad are coming for supper tomorrow and I want to do some shopping for that, etc.  

A thought for today  . . . 

° * 。 • ˚ ˚ ˛ ˚ ˛ •
•。★★ 。* 。
° 。 ° ˛˚˛ * _Π_____*。*˚
˚ ˛ •˛•˚ */______/~＼。˚ ˚ ˛
˚ ˛ •˛• ˚ ｜ 田田 ｜門 ★

*.˛.Never let the sadness of your past

and the fear of the future

ruin your present.  •。★★ 。* 。 

 

In the English Kitchen today, Nutella & Caramel Stuffed Brioche.  A simple dessert that goes together quickly and easily!!

Have a great Saturday.  Whatever you get up to, be happy, be healthy, be safe and don't forget!

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⊰✿░G░O░D⊰✿⊰L░O░V░E░S⊰✿⊰░Y░O░U░⊰✿
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And I do too! 

 

My Friday Finds . . .

 

  

A few of the things I find each week that pique my interest and inspire me to want to do, create, become, etc. Maybe they will also inspire you!    

 

A box of little houses by Ceramicist Szilvia Vihriala on Instagram. I'm not sure why but they make me think of Cinq Terre, or an Irish village, or Lunenburg back home  . . .  all that colour makes me smile.  

This also makes me smile  . . .  such cute little bloom holders. I could not find a source.   

 

I found this here.  I don't know who created this either, but I love it.    

 

 

 

Uses for Cream of Tartar.  

 

I did not know this.   It's a great piece of information to have.  I think every house has crayons in it. 

 

I love, LOVE this felt strawberry scissor keeper.  It looks really easy to make as well.  A free pattern from Red Brolly.   

How to make your own coloured mason jars, from Momtastic.  I adore coloured glass.  It's as simple as using food colouring and Mod Podge.   Who knew???   Momtastic did! 

A DIY headband.  This looks fairly easy to do.  It's not just any headband, but a twisted Turban headband made from an old t-shirt.  I found this on Honeybee Vintage.  Great page. 

I just love these tea towels with the prairie points.  They are pretty and colourful and would be a great way to use up bits and bobs of fabric you have laying around.   There is a full tutorial on Lilluna.  They look fairly straightforward and easy to make. 

 

 

Now this is pure genius.  A zippered clutch created from an old book.  Isn't it a brilliant idea?  I found this on See Kate Sew.  There is a complete tutorial on how to do it with pictures and everything.  People just amaze me with their ingenuity! 

How to get rid of yellow armpit stains on your clothing that are left there after using deodorant.   I have a few shirts which I love, but they have stains on the underarms and I am embarrassed to wear them now.  I found a great tutorial on how to get rid of them.  I am going to try this.  If it works I will be one very happy camper.
I found it on One Good Thing.  And apparently it works on colours as well. 

 

Punch a hole in the top of a bottle of vinegar and sit the bottle in your toilet tank. In doing this you will save water, as the tank wont fill as much, the vinegar will clean your toilet and tank on each flush, it leaves the bathroom smelling fresh and it doesn't harm any component of your toilet or the environment when flushed.

I use white vinegar and baking soda a lot in my house.  I use it to keep my drains smelling fresh, to get off stubborn cooked on food, etc.   It's like my magic cleaner.   

 

A home-made foot soak for dry feet.  Just in time for wearing all of those summer sandals.
Mix 1/4 cup of  Listerine mouth wash , 1/4 cup of vinegar and 1/2  cup of warm water in a large dish pan. Soak your feet in it for 10 minutes and when you take them out the dead skin will easily come off.   They'll smell nice too I reckon!  Going to try this.  Found on Livestrong.com. 

 

Free Printable Mason Jar Alphabets.   One for each letter.  All downloadable and printable.  All free. From The Cottage Market, an eclectic blog.  Works for me! 

 

How to age Terra Cotta Pots.   From Debbie Doos. 

 

Annies Digital. Potholder trio. Love these. 

 

 

Martha Stewart. Granny Squares. 

 

 

e-how. How to bleach pine cones. 

 

 

 

Confessions of a Serial DIYer.  Sew easy foot stool. 

 

Red Pepper Quilts.  Love this. 

 

 

Mom Rhythm.  Cute Mouse tutorial. 

 

 

Fave Quilts.  Easy quilted blankets. 

 

 

 

Damask Love.  DIY Pom Pom Sandals. 

 

 

 

  A Piece of Rainbow. Watercolor flowers.

Crochet Dreamz.  Mini Mitts Potholders. 

And those are my finds for this week!  I sure hope there was something of interest here for you! 

A thought to carry with you  . . .  

° * 。 • ˚ ˚ ˛ ˚ ˛ •
•。★★ 。* 。
° 。 ° ˛˚˛ * _Π_____*。*˚
˚ ˛ •˛•˚ */______/~＼。˚ ˚ ˛
˚ ˛ •˛• ˚ ｜ 田田 ｜門 ★

*.˛.Good things come to those who believe,

Better things come to those who are patient and

the Best things come to those who never give up.

•。★★ 。* 。•。★★ 。* 。•。★★ 。* 。 

 

In The English Kitchen today, I small-batched my Amish Chicken & Stuffing Casserole.  Smaller quantity but the same great taste!  

Have a great Friday!  I hope the sun is shining where you are.  It is here today, but tomorrow its supposed to turn to rain.  Whatever you get up to, don't forget! 

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⊰✿░G░O░D⊰✿⊰L░O░V░E░S⊰✿⊰░Y░O░U░⊰✿
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And I do too!