Duck, Duck, Goose

I hope you all had a lovely St. Patrick's Day weekend!  The weather was picture perfect here and we spent as much time outside as we could.

Mr. Tide worked in the yard, while I ran errands and had lunch with Ms. M.  It was good to see her and have some time to chat about nothing in particular.

Most of the Canada Geese have headed back up north for the summer months, but there are a few hangers on, like the two pictured above.

Many people find them to be a nuisance,  but they don't really bother us much.  They simply fly back and forth between the creek and the field next door.  I love hearing them honk all throughout the winter months, they add a little noise when so many of the other birds have gone.

The two that are still with us seem to be a mating pair and they also seem to have set up shop in the wetlands across the creek from us.  So maybe we will have a few goslings in the next month or two.

I hope you each have a wonderful week!  Work will be calling my name most days, but not so much that I won't take a peek at the happy feathered couple from time to time.

A Day Late and A Dollar Short

Before I do anything, I want to wish my dear friend "J" a very Happy Belated Birthday!!!  You would think that I wouldn't let the birthday of someone so dear to me slip by without me noticing, but it seems like I've been doing that a lot lately.  Last December I even forgot it was my own birthday until my family reminded me.

I have a calendar, I read it daily because it's chock full of appointments, things to do, places to go, but for some reason I thought today was the 15th and that Sunday was St. Patrick's Day.  Maybe I can blame my neighbor who told me in a phone conversation that she was fixing corned beef and cabbage on Sunday...so my feeble brain thought we were off by one day.  But I can't blame anyone but myself I'm afraid, and I think it's a symptom of having too many irons in the fire.

Whatever the reason...it wasn't because I don't love and appreciate my friend.  And if you knew her you would love and appreciate her too.  See, she won't care one bit that I forgot, she's like that, always thinking about others when she should be thinking about herself. 

Anyway, I will make it up to her I promise, and in the meantime I will mortify her by publicly wishing her a Happy Birthday on my blog...one day late and many dollars short of what I wish it could be!  J, when I'm rich and famous...I'll rent us a jet and we'll take tea in London for your birthday!

Once I did realize the date, I decided I better get my act together and pull together a proper St. Patrick's Day post...this time I'm posting early since who knows what I will remember tomorrow.  And since I have recently discovered that I have both Irish and Scottish ancestry, I feel a special kinship to the holiday.

I should have known that there was some Irish floating around in my DNA because my maternal grandfather had many of the traits typically associated with the Irish, ones he passed along...like hardworking, stubborn, and a quick temper.  I won't say if I've inherited all of these, but if you look up stubborn in the dictionary you might just find a photo of me...this is according to Mr. Tide so I'm not sure we can verify the accuracy of it all. ;-)

When I was little I thought my grandmother must be a leprechaun.  She had a keen knack for standing in her yard and spotting a 4 leaf clover from a mile away.  Ok, that might be a slight exaggeration, but she found one every single time she looked so I knew for sure she was blessed with luck and good eyesight...things I imagine any self respecting leprechaun must embody.

Today, when I was out with the dogs I looked down and BAM, just like that I found a 4 leaf clover.  My grandmother must have been watching over me because I really didn't have a clue what to write about or photograph for St. Patrick's Day this year.  Thank you Nan!

If you are of Irish decent, or just want to wear green this St. Patrick's Day, I say go for it.  Having a little extra luck on your side can never hurt right?

And thank you for all of your lovely comments and emails about my post yesterday...I love it when you all make me think...and even more when you make me smile!

What Would They Say?

If you were run over by a truck tomorrow what would you want people to remember about you?



 

I know that's a crazy #$$ question, but I think it's one we should all really ponder from time to time.

Would you want them to say that you were an awesome blogger, or that you were an awesome mother, father, wife, husband, sister, brother, daughter, or son?  Or would you want them to say both?

Would you want people to say that you were kind, considerate, giving, helpful, loving or that you were cut throat, ruthless, and #1 at whatever it is you do?  Are all of these things incongruent with one another or do we each have a little bit of all of those things rolled into us as human beings?

Yesterday and this morning I pondered all of these questions...and more.  And as I looked in the mirror and wondered if my skinny jeans would ever fit again I had to wonder who I wanted to be and what I would be willing to give up to get there.  And I had to remember that every day can't be perfect and neither can we, but it can be pretty darned close if we focus on the positives and not the negatives.  Nurture ourselves and others, not try to build ourselves up by tearing others down...what a waste of precious energy that must be.

These are tough questions my friends, hard ones to answer and some that just can't be answered.  But I think that as we push and pull ourselves to succeed, be it on a blog or anywhere in life we have to also remind ourselves to not lose a bit of ourselves in the process...unless of course you are losing the bad things, then I think that would be a good thing. 

I Wouldn't Be...

I wouldn't be the same without flowers, beautiful spring days...

Puppy dogs, my family, good friends, grilling out, and good music! 

(song by Brooke Fraser)

I hope you all had a wonderful day! :)

Lenten Rose

These beautiful shade loving plants are also known as Hellebores but I prefer to call them Lenten Roses.

The silver moon variety, which I have, start out as a lovely shade of cream and then mature to a dusty rose color.  They are called Lenten Roses because their blooms coincide with Lent, making them one of the first flowers to bloom in the late winter garden.

If planted in a nice shady spot with fertile soil, these perennials will spread like wildfire and give both you and your shade garden plenty of early blooming beauty while everything else is still sleeping.  And their blooms last for a very long time making them perfect for photo ops, so I think they are just about perfect.

Do you grow Hellebores aka Lenten Roses in your garden?

Falling in Love

 

Who wouldn't want to fall in love at a lovely cafe like this one?!  The magic of pictures is that in an instant you can be transported back to a place...maybe where you fell in love, where you realized a dream, where you just held hands and chatted.  I think we all need special places like that in our lives.

I hope you find a special place of your own this weekend!

Putting All My Eggs in One Basket

Today is another beautiful day, the sun is shining, the birds are singing, and the waves are lapping the shoreline, so life is good indeed!

I've been so motivated by this early spring weather that I've started to pull out my spring decor, including a few Easter decorations.

I don't have many of these lovely alabaster eggs, but I treasure the ones I do have because they once belonged to my mother.  She had a much larger collection, but my sisters and I divvied them up when we cleaned out the house.


 

I should probably keep my eye out for some more, but for now I'm happy with the ones I got to bring home because of their sentimental value.  My mom always displayed these in her formal living room and I can remember picking them up when I was younger and thinking how heavy they were and how delicate they seemed all at the same time.

They seem happy in my little French wire egg basket.

The white one has always been a favorite of mine, it just seems so simple and elegant.

But my real favorite is this blue one, it just says springtime to me.  Every year when I bring these eggs out of hiding I am reminded of my mother and that spring cannot be far away.  But most years it's very chilly when I gently place them somewhere in my house, and spring seems like a distant possibility.  With temps soaring into the 70s today there is little doubt that spring has sprung...which makes me happy to put all of my eggs into one basket on this fine day!

And speaking of eggs, did you know that my friend Grace has a photo of her wonderful Ukrainian egg collection in the latest issue of Ladies Home Journal?!  Check it out here, and just know that I didn't do anything to help her, she just takes wonderful photos!  Way to go girl!

Flowers and Leather

Thanks everyone for your wonderful comments about the artwork in my last post.  I'm so excited about what I've been working on and hope to be able to share all of the details with you by the end of the month.

Something you may not know about me is that I'm a jewelry lover.  Not big expensive precious jewels, though I am lucky to have some expensive jewelry, I rarely wear the smoochier stuff.  No, my jewelry lovin' leans more towards quirky, eclectic, and the unusual...plus reasonably priced.

I love finding pretty little bracelets, earrings, and necklaces that I can mix and match to whatever I'm wearing that day.


 

So whenever I stumble upon something and the price is right, I snap it up and I haven't regretted one single piece I've purchased.  Like for instance, the sweet little leather rosette bracelet above that I recently found at my friend Dawna's store...Cecil's Country Store.

I can't tell you how many great pieces of jewelry I have bought from Dawna over the years but right off the top of my head I can name a few pieces that are personal favorites and pieces I get comments on every time I wear them...like my pewter crab cuff bracelet, my jeweled snowflake pin, my shell bracelet, and the list goes on and on.

As soon as I saw these pretty little floral bracelets made from tooled and cut leather I knew my collection would be growing.  I also picked one up for a friend as a thank you for my lameness lately...you know who you are! ;-)

The best part is that no 2 are alike, some have pink flowers, 2 flowers, purple, you name it, and the price was too good to be true.  I'm thinking I may just need to pop back by and pick up a few more...some for myself of course but these would also make great gifts that span the generations.

I haven't had a chance to wear mine out since I bought it...can you say stuck at my computer lately?!  But I know that when I do, people will say, "oh what a cute bracelet," and they'll want to know where I bought it.  Be sure to stop by Cecil's if you want one of your own, I know that they will go quickly...sometimes I wish I could keep these great secrets for myself, but dang it, I just can't!