late July prosperity

The mornings are darker now that July is fading into its last full week. I arise early and as Hannah Whitall Smith pens so eloquently, "And He said such delightful things, that to find them out became my supreme delight."

His Word is the best place to start my day. I am on a treasure hunt every morning.

Basketmaking has me in its grips. This basket especially is a favorite of mine. I call it my "Dorothy" basket, except I carry my knitting around in it instead of Toto.


By rule of thumb in my garden, basil is not usually potted, but put into the ground where it can stretch its roots down deep into the soil. But I had an extra basil plant this year and no where to put it so I decided I would plop it into a clay pot with some oregano. I zap it from time to time with just a small dilution of Miracle Gro. It prospers. Just as I desire my life in Jesus to prosper when I feed it.

Enjoy your weekend!

Romance

Even the starts and stops of the heavy, late afternoon traffic as we headed out on the highway this evening was able to stifle any ceremony of us being together......on a date. I wore a fuchsia linen dress, and dangling earrings with pink stones hung from my ears. The earrings that I had informed the girls in the past that I "never wear" because, frankly, they hurt my ears. Of course, that was the first thing Charlotte commented on when she saw me walk out the door. But I wore them anyway. I was in a dangly earring sort of mood. A black shawl was carried on my arm because one can always expect cold air conditioned restaurants in the south on summer evenings.

Before pulling out of our driveway, I asked him if he minded if I knitted on the way, which amounted to an hours drive before reaching our destination. He looked at me, smiled and said, "Go get your knitting". He drove, I knitted, we talked, the romance of another hour with my husband.

As we sat side by side in the dimly lit restaurant, the minutes were absorbed into thin air and we succumbed to being just us, a couple. This is the way I have always heard it should be.

"For once I can touch what my heart used to dream of,
Long before I knew someone warm like you
Could make my dreams come true."

Vegetable and Fruit Expansion

"I expand and live in the warm day like corn and melons".
Ralph Waldo Emerson

Rose with Zealand

A stallion foal was born at the farm where Rose takes her weekly riding lesson. He is a blaze by genetics, she is ablazed by proximity and touch. Who might be enjoying this moment the most?

Mops, Goggles and Books

First we clean

And then we swim.




The girls were eager to help clean this morning if swimming would be their deserved reward this hot, humid afternoon.



And for me, some poolside reading. I enjoy reading historical fiction from time to time. The King's Chronicles series by Lynn Austin is fitting the bill this summer.

Waiting for Miss Right

A letter came in the mail today. It was from a good friend who spends summers on a lake in Canada. How I enjoyed reading her letter with its beautiful calligraphic handwriting. Her statuesque 5'11'' daughter has started dating my handsome 6'3'' son. We say very little about this relationship in deference to our grown children. But we are smiling all under.



A violin that sits in a living room cabinet tells a story from my son's past. It was a gift from a girl that would sit on my bedroom floor and talk to me for long stretches of time. I liked the candor of this young woman. There have been others through the years.

With diligence I continue to pray.

Covering Chairs

On Sundays my family dines in our dining room. I pull out the good china, silver, and crystal and we enjoy sitting at a more formal setting, valuing the specialness of a special day. After all it is the best day of the week.

Because the chairs at the dining room table are used at least weekly let's face it, children drop food when they eat, or for that matter adults have a way of making their own sort of messes.

So many spots and stains had been scrubbed and some were actually able to be gotten out, but alas, some would be downright persistent in staying right where they were put without avail.

I know a lady who was willing to show me how to reupholster these chairs. Easy she says. I am such a team player.......so why not share the joy.....enter my gifted husband. I am glad to announce all the chairs are now beautifully recovered.

This past Sunday we all sat on the silk, taupe colored, newly covered chairs. My husband set a towel on each and everyone's chair. It was almost like being handed a bib.

Rooted

So then, just as you received Christ Jesus as Lord, continue to live in Him, rooted and built up in Him, strengthened in the faith as you were taught, and overflowing with thankfulness.
Colossians 2:6-7



Aspen trees are spread from root suckers contained within root systems that may live underground for thousands of years. That is a solid root. How my heart desires for my rooting in Him be be likewise.

Scented Geranuims

Rose scented geranium plants were annually bought and planted in my garden in days past. I especially loved their Victorian appeal. And as if just smelling them and delighting in their delicate pink flowers was not enough, I would bake loaf cakes and make jelly with their scented leaves. These days it is hard to find a source from which to purchase them.

But while at the Farmers Market this year I happened to discover citronella scented geraniums for sale. Their claim is they will keep away mosquitoes. It occurred to me that is exactly what they do. No mosquitoes get on the plant but that leaves more of you for the mosquitoes to feast upon!

Classic Tea

Classic Tea, 2:30 sharp, at a Inn in a town made prosperous by family tobacco money.

We all carried our ladies purses and wore our summer sandals which we settled under the spotless white linen tableclothed table.

Sitting at a corner table encircled by the multi glass-paned windows, we chose our tea preferences, pots of white tea with hints of pear and pineapple and mango, black teas laced with vanilla. The server called the sugar lumps (not cubes) , we collected the lumps to sweeten our tea with a little silver spoon.



Shiny elevators in the lobby upon which proper tea time behavior was discarded for a brief moment.



Because we were completely filled up, it was time to go home.

It's a Fairy's World

Somehow we were thinking that bored damsels might like to create a fairy world this summery afternoon. Hid under the zinnia plants, nasturtiums and oregano in the girl's garden the tiniest magical fairy room came alive.

Tables of twig legs and stone tops covered with nasturtium leaf tablecloth and set with fairy china composed of pine cone seeds and wild strawberries. For little fairy bottoms, twigs were topped with hickory nut shell halves (which also make delightful toadstools we discovered).

A miniature side table holds a bowl of global sized fruit.

Oh look, flower pillows to add decor to the bark and rock settee perched upon the plush moss rug imported from behind the playhouse.
We expect to see wee footprints in the dirt tomorrow morning.