Tea Tyme Equals the Letter "T"

Some of my Vintage Garden Princess House collection. I loved all their pretty tea things....sad they went the way of Pampered Chef and lost their real identity which was their pattern Princess Heritage on hand blown crystal pieces....a lost art today!

A perfect post for Ms. Jenny and the folks at Alphabe Thursday presenting the letter "T"!

My favorite electric tea kettle. I would like to trade it in for the glass electric tea kettle. Sigh.

My Tea Tyme Quilt made especially for me by Suzanne and finished by Sue. Do you how much these two beautiful ladies mean to me? I can not begin to explain. I also am in awesome of all these beautiful designs, hand created. A true masterpiece.

If you go to Foodily, Inc. you can get this simple recipe.

My cute Easter teapot I found in a thrift store for a few dollars. I love these terrific finds!

This is a Royal Stafford tea cup and saucer, produced in England.I like the black outer cup with the pretty pastel flowers. A true favorite.

A sweet google image and poem to share. Enjoy some tea and visit Beverly  too for all the delights of the  Pink Saturday peeps.

I am always missing out on great Tea Cups swaps and other fun stuff but I did not miss out on this fun giveaway shared by my sweet friend Theresa . Look at this cute candle tea lite holder she gave me. It even tells me what my name mean:

I L O V E this sweet gift. Theresa is one of my most favorite folks here in blogland. She is kind and always shares her phamily with us. She is a wonderful Christian lady and I am very honored that she would call me her friend! Thank you sweet Theresa,

I was so excited when I received my gift. This tote bag is getting to church every Sunday with me these days. It is perfect to hold my bible and note book and pen. I think it is really special.

Here is part of the goody bag that Theresa shared with me. It is so bright and cheerful. I love it because I love the cherry color of yellow too.

I like to journal and this will be great to start a new chapter in my journey we call life.

I love the tea lites wrapped so pretty in netting and I am encouraged by these words on the little easel. I am grateful for each day God gives me and I truly thank Him for all my needs.

The hand written card Theresa sent along was so pretty I am sharing it here.

It was so sweet I took three photos of it so you could see the words she wrote especially for me:

This was a great giveaway win for me because the months leading up to Easter are often very bittersweet for me and this cheered me up perfectly. Thank you again my friend. You are a wonderful friend.

I wish everyone a blessed and beautiful Easter SONday. we will be sharing it at our church during the early nine o'clock service SONday morning.

Please visit Jenny and all the Terrific T's today and stop by and say hi to Beverly and some Pinkies too!

Easter Beaded Eggs: Pink Saturday/Blue Monday/Love is...

Rebekah and I made these beaded eggs yesterday. That purple one was an act of love. Until I got into the groove, it took me forever to get into the swing of it! They came out so pretty and wanted to share them for Pink Saturday.  They look very pretty and I am glad we spent five hours working on these because we have two baskets filled with them!

Some of the beaded eggs that are blue have a purple hue to them and some of the purple beads look blue! But they look cute in their egg cups and ready for the Easter Day festivities! My middle daughter and I enjoyed making these eggs together. Please join Sally and the other Blue Crew participates so you can check out all the blue colors today.

Love is....always has my heart. This one is very much like we are. Always finding ways to help out and putting a few extra dollars in our pockets too!. We recycle aluminum cans. We also fill our recycle can every other Tuesday for the Trash Man to haul away. You will be surprised what you can recycle and make your trash day load lighter. I also save change and have started that 52 week challenge where you save money each week. We have a vacation planned later this summer and it is always nice to have a little extra tucked away for something fun. I have started to save the 52 Week Challenge for our Christmas Club too. When the kids were small it was nice to have enough money saved to not only buy a few gifts for each child but also to have a nice Christmas dinner. You can do this challenge two ways: you can start saving $1 the first week, $2 the second week and and so on until you save $52 the 52 week, or you can save $52 the first week, $51 the second, $50 the 3rd etc. The idea is that you will have $1,378 by the end of 52 weeks! There is a chart out there that shows the figures but I could not get it to print here! Anyway, if you try it, you will have extra cash for whatever you want after the 52 weeks are up.

Have a great week!

Good Fences

When we go to Famous Dave's for some barbeque we pass these lovely homes sitting on acreage. I love seeing horses and other signs of farm living. I hate seeing all these properties turn into subdivisions. This fence is sharing their space with some small trees.

I love a white picket fence and here is one just one block from my own home. Quaint and simple. Feels so homey too.
TexWisGirl  is our hostess here .  I am amazed at the beautiful photos everyone else shares. But I enjoy looking for fences and am always on the lookout! Stop by and say hi and enjoy a lovely Thursday!

Don't ever take a fence down until you know why it was put up.

Robert Frost

SAVING MEMORIES

I hope you will visit our wonderful teacher Ms. Jenny and share something sassy, silly, sorrowful or filled with sentiment!

I was sorting photos today. I found this one from 2006. My sweet hubby looks so youthhful with his oldest daughter Noelle. I am a sentimental person. She has the best smile.

My mom was smiling from ear to ear while holding Jeremy when he was just a tiny baby. He will turn 30 this year. Where has time gone?

We are always smiling because we have such a special relationship. If you can laugh in the face of your troubles you will always be a survivor.

My father-in-law Carl was a kind heart. He treated me like a daughter and I always loved that he supported me. He is admiring Rebekah, who turns 27 this year!

Hannah was enjoying spending her sisters birthday with Tweety Bird! She was a quiet child, not so much these days! A young woman who speaks her mind! She said no one likes you when you're 23 so at 24 I am sure she will have some fans! Wink Wink!

Nick was a serious baby. He has certainly outgrown that these days! He is running a half marathon this week. He will turn 22 this August and always makes us proud.

Always  make time for those children. They need you more than they need things.

Even Scripture promotes children. No matter where they go in life as long as they have had a proper upbringing and good role models than we always come back full circle.

Blue Monday/ Love is.../Awww Monday

Nick and Noelle in their favorite t shirts. The oldest girl with her youngest brother. Nick headed back to school in Salina today and Noelle wore her favorite Dallas Cowboy shirt. It is navy blue.

My honey wearing his Kentucky Wildcat gear and looking into the sun! Look at that blue sky behind him! We have been Wildcat fans for a long, long time and we'd like to see them go all the way with March Madness. There are lots of great teams so you just never know!

My son-in-law works for this company so when I saw one of their port o potty's I had to share it. It is a lovely shade of turquoise blue!

I hope you will visit Sally and the Blue Crew today for some great Blue Monday shares.

My hubby might be my Romeo but this Juliet will be looking more like this in the early A.M. hours if I don't get some sleep! Goodnight all!

I am adding my selection to Awww Monday with Michael and Sandee and the nicest group of folks who share this fun Monday post! I enjoy playing with some of the best folks in blog land!

I choose this google image because at our church service yesterday, one of our pastors, Chad, always talks about his love of bacon! He shared this with us and I am sharing it with you today. A while back Chad was talking about the Prodigal Son returning home and reminding us how he was living amongst the pigs in a pig pen and saying that he was eating the food they were eating! Chad was kidding with us when he said that the Lord would never put him in a pig pen because he loves bacon too much! Yesterday he tied the message into having a well balanced breakfast and you can only imagine he showed us a plate of eggs, hash browns, toast and B A C O N ! Our church is a wonderful haven for those hurting and wanting to find out what it is all about. Chad also reminded us that our church is a front porch for prodigals and all are welcomed there!

Happy Pink Saturday and Happy Springtime

A google image of a sweet Easter tyme teapot and bunny. I love Easter. I have so many wonderful childhood memories of Easter with my folks.

I found this intrigue designed little teapot showcasing Easter at the thrift store for a few dollars. It features a little cottage scene and my bunnies are standing guard.

My favorite aunt, Auntie Ang made these beautiful hand crocheted eggs from the dollar store plastic eggs. I  love them so much, I wish I could find someone who would make more of them for me! My two chicks are standing guard and she crocheted the cover on the plastic Easter basket too. I treasure this gift from her. She had rheumatoid arthritis and yet she could sew and crochet like a dream! I really miss her in my life. Breast cancer struck here down in 2000.

Come join Beverly and visit some pinkies too. I hope you like the touches of pink I shared today. It is going to be a gorgeous Spring day here at home. We have a garage to clean and floors to mop and shine. Have a beautiful day.

R E L A T I O N S H I P S

I was at Face Book earlier today. I shared some thoughts on marriage and I guess I have had it on my mind because at our church RedRocks Church is in the middle of a series on Relationships. It makes one think...

I love this quote. I think because my hubby told me the next portion of the office moves will be April 30-May 3. At first I thought, ahhh.....great, our anniversary is May 3. But then I caught myself being selfish and realized any extra money is a good thing. Especially with me not working. I realized we can work around it and find a way to celebrate together. Afterall, we aren't going anywhere else!

Amen! This says it all. You have to be a good forgiver in a marriage to make it work. When I was newly married I never felt welcomed into his phamily with the exception of my wonderful late father-in-law. His mother favored the other three siblings he had and I am going to be real honest here, I got the gold! The trophy, the great guy, the man who lives for his own phamily, I don't want to get into his phamily and their personal problems. But there were many and my FIL was my only ally. I loved that man, he was a kind heart and I suppose it makes sense now, all these years later, my hubby is very much like him. The zany sense of humor. Doing what he needed to do to keep his phamily afloat. If only one thing could be said about my marriage, this would be it, my hubby can make me laugh. Sometime when he has a break at work (rarely) he says the silliest things to me. We have some pet names and we talk our silly talk! But his laughter and how he can turn my grumpy or sad mood around always makes me smile!

Marriage between men and women are like the differences between cats and dogs. It has been said that dogs are prose while cats are poetry. Sometime I will bare my heart and share some poetry here with you.
For Pat:
My sister, my friend
Gone from my sight
Never from my heart
Like a star on a dark cold night
I feel your presence there,
My heart becomes light.
Missing you with all my being
Loving you always
Until we meet again
In Heaven's home


A little verse I wrote about my late sister. She has been gone fourteen years and I miss her voice and the phone calls we shared along with the laughter. I love to laugh! Which makes me think about the second thing I want to share today. Life and loss.

 What is Life

A question?

A word?

The journey of each life,

Good or bad,

Determining our future plans.

Taking us where we have never been

Or perhaps keeping us safe in the familar

Allowing us to dream,

To dance or sing,

Hiding in the darkness

Or finding our own in the light.

Grab life by the reins

And ride until there is no more.

Life to live.
 
Life is so complex. Sometime my head hurts thinking about it. I have a tough time during the months of February through July. Not all sadness but difficult months due to loss. If one think is for sure God is noting my life because I see it in how things happen around me.

February 2001.  On the 7th day of that month a childhood hero was lost, Dale Evans. Oh she was amazing in her personal as well as celebrity life. It made me sad. Around the same time, a friend that I had known for quite some time lost her mother. Ovarian Cancer. In case you did  not know it, cancer sucks! Then lousy cancer struck down my big sister. She was too young to die but she did. If it broke my heart I can not imagine what it did to our mother. She was lost, broken, I could see it in her face, sadness although she tried to hide it well. Perhaps her generation, they kept so much to themselves. Then along came March. Cold, windy, brutal when the snow falls in Colorado. We should have celebrated another birthday for my niece Sarah, a bright, beautiful, kind girl with so much to live for. But her life was cut short, taken away by a rare form of sepsis (blood poisoning) in January 1996. My sis would have celebrated a March 27th birthday but not to be. She was celebrating in heaven, free of pain and suffering. Enjoying heaven with Sarah, with dad and all the wonderful ones who went before us.When I say God makes notes in ones life, I was not kidding! Go back to March 27, 1987. The horrible, cold, scientific doctor could only say to me "Your fetus is no longer viable , you have suffered a fetal demise!" April 5, 1985, pregnant with my first son Jeremy, getting that horrible call from my sister Mary. Dad is gone. It was Good Friday. God took my daddy away on Good Friday. I thought, God, you are rather cruel. An attorney I knew, who happened to be Jewish, said to me, "Anne I know Christians believe in Jesus, as the son of God. I am sorry for your loss but have you thought that God must really love you and your phamily by taking your father on the very day He gave His only son?" Words to remember, two years later. April 17, 1987. Carrying my now deceased unborn daughter Rachel Lee for three more weeks and being induced into labor to see a lifeless little person. April 17, 1987 was also Good Friday. God was good to me, that horrible, rude doctor was on vacation. A young resident doctor helped deliver my unborn child. A truly horrible time in my life. But there was my husband, as strong as he could be, as right as rain and reminding me what a keeper he truly is.

Today I pray for my husband. He has received word that his oldest brother, Carl Michael is going to hospice. His is a long story, a very sad one too. So I will only hope God grants us the courage to pray. I do believe He hears our heart. Someday's I have nothing to give but my heart.

Please visit Ms. Jenny and join all the wonderful "R" posts!

Love is.../Blue Monday

A touch of blue with Love is...today! When our kids were younger we spent times like this filled with worry. I pray for good times as we grow older ....

Have you been to Jump Street? Well,Jayden has. He is having so much fun here and wearing his blue socks with his blue jeans!

Jayden and his cousin Drazah having lots of energy and fun at Jump Street.

Come visit Sally and share your blues