Days of Wine and Roses

Thank you to everyone who fell in love with the Beautyberries in my last post, they truly live up to their name!

Life around here has been quiet, it seems that the auto accident we had a little over a month ago is letting itself be known with some lingering shoulder and back pain.  The soreness has been there all along, but it seems to have gotten worse over the past few weeks so I'm off to see a doctor on Tuesday.

I hope he will be able to fix me up quickly, because I have to say that as someone who has never had back pain before, it really is the pits, and keeps you from doing things like taking pictures and spending much time on the computer!

Mr. Tide and I really aren't big drinkers, in fact we rarely drink at all, but we do keep a bottle of Willm, a lovely pinot gris, around for when people come to dinner, or to take as a hostess gift when going to a friend's house.

We discovered this lovely, slightly sweet white wine on a visit to Whole Foods awhile back, so when we make our bi-monthly pilgrimage to WF, which we affectionately call the land of joy and joyness, we always pick up a bottle.   It's from the Alsace region of France, the area that we visited around this time last year.  That was a wonderful time, our very own days of wine and roses!

I hope each of you is enjoying your weekend!  And a very Happy Thanksgiving to my Canadian friends!

Time Flies

It seems like just yesterday I was standing overlooking a small French village from this hilltop vineyard!

But that's how time works as you get older, it seems to just fly by without much warning.  You turn around and poof, another week, month, year has drifted by and you wonder where in the heck it went, and how it slipped by without you being able to slow it down a little.

To those of you who have so patiently waited to get your photos from my last giveaway that was AGES ago, I apologize!  Time has eluded me lately, and I don't even know how, but days have turned to weeks and I just finally ordered the prints tonight!  So you will be getting your photos, just not in a timely fashion that I had intended.

Things like a broken leg (not mine but dear Ms. M), work stuff, family stuff, house stuff, have all gotten in the way of my good intentions lately.  And now the holidays are upon us...sheesh, can someone stop this crazy ride so that I can get off?   Or can you at least teleport me back to the tiny village in France where time seems to have stood still for a few centuries?!  Maybe that is the secret, going on permanent vacation where time seems to slow down just a little.  I'm all for testing out this theory, anyone want to join me?!

Apparently the universe is telling me to slow down a bit, or at least to not read or send emails anyway.  The past few months my emails have been disappearing into never, never land.  Or maybe they have just slowed down and slipped into another dimension.

So if you haven't heard from me, or if I haven't heard from you...well we are apparently communicating in my fantasy land where time slows down to a snail's pace.  At first I thought it was just my gmail, which has always given me a little bit of a fit, but my brother and our realtor have also not been receiving my emails, and those are on my regular ISP account...sigh!

So let's just all move to the tiny village in Northern France and walk to each other's houses instead of emailing, spend hours eating a meal, enjoy long walks, and I can hand out my giveaway items instead of having to order and mail them.  Sound like a plan?!

If you don't hear from me before Thanksgiving, just assume that I'm some place wonderful, and not banging my head against my keyboard which is far more likely!

Happy Thanksgiving to you and yours!

The Ladies Who Lunch

Thank you to each and every one of you who visit my blog, support my giveaways, and leave lovely and thoughtful comments.  Even when I don't get the chance to reply, I read and enjoy each and every one of them!  And thank you for showing Rene from Cottage and Vine some bloggy love on her guest visit yesterday.  If you missed it, you can clickHERE to read her wonderful post!

 

I have a CD of show tunes and one of the songs is a medley of Pretty Women and The Ladies Who Lunch, both great songs and I always sing right along with it at the top of my lungs.  Mr. Tide lies to me and tells me that he likes my singing...reason #1 million why I love that man!

Today I had the girls from The Vintage Source over for lunch.  These are 4 of the prettiest women you'll ever meet!  Joy, Cathe, Sheryl, and Michelle are pretty on the outside and beautiful on the inside!  Today we were the ladies who lunch, enjoying chicken salad, croissants, fruit, and for dessert we had raspberry and lemon sorbet.  With temps over 100 degrees today, it seemed like the perfect dessert, and throw in a few Pepperidge Farm cookies and you're all set!  

 

I served dessert in the parfait glasses pictured above that once belonged to my mother.  My mom loved to use these dessert dishes to serve sherbet in or vanilla ice cream with cream de menthe when that was all the rage in the 1970s.  As kids, we always thought the cream de menthe tasted like mouthwash, but my mother thought it was tres chic!

The Vintage Source girls are always so sweet to me, and today was no exception!  I received two bottles of wine...I love the green polka dot ribbon on this bottle!

And the other bottle was tucked inside this darling wine bag!

Isn't this too cute with the flower and the butterfly cut out that shows the color of the bright orange tissue paper?!!

And check out this colorful flamingo note card that had a very sweet message written in it!

And lucky me, I got a whole bouquet of these gorgeous sunflowers, one of my favorite flowers!  This picture has not been photoshopped, they truly are this gorgeous color!

 

 

Apparently they put dye in water and the flowers absorb the dye, and it colors the tips of the petals this beautiful reddish orange color!

I also received two of the prettiest embroidered cotton guest towels!  

Look at that comfy adirondack chair and that sweet little straw hat!

These towels are so soft and you could use them as kitchen towels, but they are too darn pretty for me to risk staining them so these will be for "display only" in my house!

This beautiful aqua shell will soon take residence on one of the hooks in my hall bathroom!  And the best part of all is that these will be available for sale at The Vintage Source so be sure to stop by for this month's sale and pick some up, they make perfect gifts!!!

Thank you ladies for these lovely gifts, which were completely unnecessary!  Having friends over for lunch is such a nice way to spend the afternoon, and when the guests are as kind and fun to talk to as these women, it makes you want to be one of the ladies who lunch...everyday! (If you scroll down to the bottom of the post you can listen to the song and see a wonderful video full of beautiful women...many of them my favorite actresses of all time!!)

Thank you to everyone who entered to win The House At Royal Oak Giveaway!  The lucky winner was #34 Sailing Simply!!  Just send me an email with your mailing address, and I'll get the book in the mail to you right away!

 

 

 

The next few days I will have my nose to the grindstone working on some very overdue posts about people I've been wanting to introduce you to, and a few stories that have to be submitted by the end of this week!  I hope you all have a wonderful week!