Mother's Day

My children are very thoughtful of me on Mother's Day, and every day for that matter. The best part of the day is just being with them. My daughter always chooses unique gifts. One year she framed these pictures for me. The pictures from left to right are my grandmother, my mother, me and my daughter. Originally the frame was a natural wood color. That was the way it was for a long time, but when we painted the wall where it hangs, I painted the frame to match.

I couldn't get a good shot of the picture without using the flash, and that accounts for the light reflection. Incidentally, the rosebush was in our yard in California.

Birdcage Picture

When I was posting the picture of my birdcage in the doll room yesterday, it reminded me of this picture of a birdcage in our powder room. I found this picture at Marshall's Home Goods so it was quite inexpensive. When we redid our floors with the Travertine stone we also put the stone in this room, repainted the walls and had a new toilet installed. The old one wasn't working very well and we thought this would be the ideal time to replace it since the old one would have to be taken up anyway. You'll never believe how much trouble I had deciding on a replacement stool. Finally decided on this one. It's a Toto toilet. I had never heard of Toto toilets before I started doing research for this one. I really really love it. You love a toilet, Charlotte? Well, yes, I do love this one. If we ever replace another one, it will be a Toto.

Here is a closer up view of the birdcage picture.

P.S. When my Hubby saw this post, his comment was "You're scraping the bottom of the barrel now."

On the High Ledge in the Doll Room

We've been in the doll room several times before, but today I want you to look up higher to see what we have on the high ledge.

Here are those three objects closer up.

To the left is a mission birdhouse my Hubby made. We had it in the family room for awhile on the top of an armoir. When we moved the armoir out, there was no place in there to put the birdhouse, so I suggested we put it in the doll room. I love it there. This is one of my favorite of many many birdhouses he made.

Meet the Laulu family. On the left is Mr. Laulu. Santa brought him to my son when he was about 3 years old. He immediately started calling him Laulu. He liked that bear so well that the next Christmas Santa brought him Mrs. Laulu and baby Laulu. He had a pretty big bear collection when he was little, but Laulu was always his favorite. When he outgrew the bears, I didn't have the heart to get rid of these three, so I've kept them all these years. Along the way I had to make a new body for Laulu. He was just loved to pieces.

I love this pink birdcage. Partly because I love pink, partly because I love birds, partly because I love birdcages. Mostly I love it because my daughter gave it to me not long after we moved here. Some of our friends from California were visiting right after I got the birdcage, and they thought it needed some birds in it, so they bought the two little birds for it while they were here.

Back Upstairs

Let's go back upstairs now.

While we're up here, we can look back down.

Tomorrow for Show & Tell Friday we'll go back in the my doll room. I have something in there to share with you. Hope to see you back up here tomorrow.

In the Entry Way

Thought I would just go ahead and show you where we keep the vase in yesterday's post. Here it is - in the entry way under the Thomas Kinkade painting which was one of the gifts our church gave us when we retired. I really love that painting.

A Lovely Vase

This vase has special meaning to me because it is one of the few things I have that belonged to my mother. One of her sisters gave it to her back in the early 40s. I remember it in our house when I was just a little kid. I always thought it was pretty. My mother didn’t have a lot of nice things. As I mentioned in an earlier blog, she didn’t have much money, and when she bought something, it was usually for somebody else. When we gave her nice things, she almost always ended up giving them back to us. She always seemed to prefer having something that we had discarded than something new. Almost everything she had in her house was something we had had in our house in the past. She grew up during the depression and learned to do with very little. She didn’t have very many material possessions, but she had a lot of love which she gave away freely.

A Meme and A Little More Reminiscing

Here is a fun meme I accepted from Justabeachkat. If you are you, and you, and you back there hiding, I hope you will play along too.

3 things:

3 places I go all the time: church, grocery store, mall.

3 people who email me: My daughter even though I talk to her on the phone almost every day, My friend in Tennessee, friends in California.

3 favorite places to eat: Red Lobster, Red Devil Pizza, Chompies for fish & chips

3 places I would rather be right now: London, Carmel, Kulpahar, India

3 TV shows I could watch over and over: Everybody Loves Raymond (and I do), Reba, Dancing With the Stars.

3 people who will do this: you, and you, and you back there hiding (Let me know if you do this, so I can see your answers)

A little more reminiscing – Here I am in my first car. It’s a ’52 Ford. I was very proud of that car. This is not a very good picture, but you get the idea.

Praying Hands

I took this picture because my husband wanted to use it for his blog last Thursday which was National Day of Prayer. He has had these praying hands for years. They are on his desk right now. (I moved them to the top of the computer to take the picture). There is an interesting story about the artist who designed the hands on his post for that day. I have seen these hands for years, but did not know the story behind them. If you are interested, you can click HERE to go to his blog.
It is time to get ready to go to church now. Going to worship God is always a wonderful experience. I look forward to Sundays.

Kind Blogger Award & Victoria Magazine

I was surprised and delighted to get this Kind Blogger Award from Ruthie at Just Ruthie. Thank you so much, Ruthie. I feel so honored that you chose me to pass the award on to.

It is so hard for me to decide who to pass the award on to for there have been so many of you who have been leaving such lovely comments on my blog. I think I will chose Ginger though of Enchanting Cottage to give the award to. If not for Ginger, I wouldn't be blogging at all. She's the one that got me started. Thank you, Ginger. If you are one of my regular blogging friends, and you are reading this, please accept this award from me as well. You know who you are.


If you like Victoria magazine like I do, you will enjoy the newest one. Mine arrived a few days ago.

I think this is a great issue especially if you like blue and white and if you are hooked on the Mitford books by Jan Karon.

There is an interesting article about Jan Karon. Here is a quote from her. “More than a decade and a half ago, and at two o’clock in the morning, I got out of bed and literally ran to my writing room, where I sat down in a weathered wicker chair at a hundred-dollar table and began writing the first Mitford novel on a used computer.” Wow! I would say she really got inspired. One reason I love Jan Karon is her devotion to God and the Bible. This is evident in her writings and she has a wonderful testimony. She quotes this scripture in her article in Victoria. “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.” Philippians 4:13. Keep writing, Jan. I love all your books, as do millions of other people.

From a Bed to a Bench

My son will probably kill me for posting this picture of him that was taken about 40 years ago, but I thought it was necessary to have a picture of the headboard on his bed .

There were two of these beds in his bedroom. Actually in this house there was only one, but when we moved to another city, we bought a matching one.

When he got older, we took the twin beds out, and he bought himself a waterbed. Well, we had both of those headboards in our garage for many many years. We finally decided to donate them to a rummage sale our church was having. One of the members of the church bought them, and turned them into benches. One of them he sold, and the other one he brought to an auction we had at our church. Were we ever surprised to see what he had done. That headboard made a very interesting bench. The lady that bought it at the auction knew the history of the headboard, and so when she decided she didn’t want it in their entry way any longer, she asked us if we would like to have it. She knew how much it would mean to us and that’s probably why she decided to put something else in her entry way - so that she could give it to us. Of course we were thrilled to have it. We really didn’t know where we were going to put it, but it ended up in our dining room. Here is a picture of it there.

Wedding Anniversary

Today would have been my parents’ 76th anniversary. They were both 19 years old when they married. They didn’t have any pictures from their wedding. They were married in a double ceremony with one of my father’s sisters and her husband. It was a private ceremony. This picture was taken about five years later. This is the oldest picture I have of them together.

They celebrated their 50th at a dinner party at our home. Here is a plaque with a picture taken at that party. It’s hard to believe. That was 26 years ago. This year my husband and I will celebrate our 50th.

I believe this is the only professional photograph they ever had made together.




They were together for 66 years. My Dad died in 1998. Mother died exactly one year later.

Our Office aka Hubby's Room

Bird houses my husband made. He made lots lots more. Will feature at a later date. He bought the two flags, India & U.S., for his office at church because of our support for Kulpahar Kids' Home in India. Now that he's retired, it's here in our home office.

Notice the "Duck" theme in the room?

Ceiling fan blade in foreground.

Leah, our missionary in India gave us the silkscreen pictures of the elephants. Water buffalo and elephant are from Kenya.

He found this bookcase at a yard sale.

Is my hubby a fun guy or what?

Miniature bats we got in Louisville.

He found this duck pillow at a yard sale. It fit the theme of the room.

Today is (would have been) my parents wedding anniversary. I wanted to finish up the tour of this room before we leave it. Sometime later in the day, I'll post a tribute to my parents.