On the road . . . and up and down the road

Heading to work (or anywhere else, for that matter), we usually go up a hill and then down a hill to get to the highway. We could go a slightly shorter but slower distance if we used Mimosa Road (the road we live on), but I prefer using the highway because it is a little bit faster and because it has a center line marked and folks aren't quite as likely to stray from side to side or just keep to the middle. Things are lushly green right now, and it's just beautiful. I took a few pictures this morning. Because of last night's storm and rains, there was a bit of lingering fog/mist. The one above is at the crest of the hill as we start back down . . . I parked there where the folks go in to get their horses and that fence post is at the corner of their gap (what folks have if they don't have a gate).

This view is from just a few feet down the road, looking off to the left . . . the highway I will soon be on is kind of down in the bottom between the hill I'm on and the one you can see across the way.

Here I'm looking back up to where the car is parked....if you went back up over the hill and down, you'd get to our driveway.

Same location, but now looking down this section of hill...there's a house in a curve...and then more downhill...then another curve...and more downhill to the highway....

This is probably way more than anyone wanted to see of the mile of road between my house and the highway...but it's SOOOOO pretty! I am truly blessed by being surrounded by this beauty going to and from town. And right now the air is redolent with so many sweet scents from honeysuckle to roses. Blackberries are in full bloom as the locust trees wane. The wild multiflora roses are simply spectacular (and just out of view in this picture, I realize, a large growth of them being just around the curve to the left). Each morning I can see more shades of green and mark the growth of leaves as silhouettes are fuller and rounder and my views are constricted. This is just an amazingly spectacular spring!

Wherever you are, I hope you are enjoying the beauties that surround you. We are so blessed to have been given this incredible world to live in - God could have given us a flat, gray world and we would not have know the difference - but instead He put us in the midst of great beauties of sight and sound and smell.

Sweet dreams.

p.s. and I hope Blogger cooperates and lets the pictures be expanded for those who'd like to see them more fully

Here's the little candle mat I made for Beth in its early stages - it's a Bare Roots pattern, but I found a kit with wonderful dyed wool felt at the Quilt Exposition in Nashville. The color gradations are great. This is at the beginning of the embroidery - who knew that it would be impossible to mark on the felt? Just had to eyeball the designs! But...it all turned out great in the end. And I still have the pattern and know better how to approach it next time. I found a small pumpkin-scented candle to go in the middle and sneaked the whole thing into her classroom. She loved it!

And here's the whole-cloth mini quilt I started in Gulf Shores . . . haven't washed out the blue lines yet...thot the quilting would be visible, but it doesn't seem to be. It was lots of fun, though. I was doing the whole Tonya thing - no frame, no hoop, etc....using an embroidery type position and motion rather than the traditional rocking motion...I have since started on a black one with a different quilting design and will show it when done...maybe can figure out how to make the quilting show up.

We enjoyed a wonderful Thanksgiving at Evan's mother's house, even though it will be our last one there. She just moved to an assisted living facility last weekend. It's painful, but we are so blessed in that she had no broken bones in spite of numerous falls in the last couple of years and didn't burn down the house in spite of leaving the cooktop on, etc. Evan's sister Connie picked her up and brought her out to her house where we congregated, bringing all the feast elements from turkey and dressing to ham to potato salad to everything else! My brother and his wife and daughter came over from East Tennessee as well. Evan and all his siblings were there and some of the grandchildren and out-laws (as in the case of my brother and his family). Having a good family is a blessing we often take for granted, I fear, but it is a tremendous blessing nonetheless. It gives you a good start, it gives you support along the way, it wraps its arms around you when you need that. We are so very blessed.

With a heart full of thanks for the rich blessings from God that are all completely undeserved . . .

Happy Sunday to All!

It's been a beautiful day - lots of sunshine but not too hot, thanks to the cold front that came through Friday evening. It was so clear yesterday and only in the 70's mid-morning - the air had a feeling of fall to it. It was weird, since we've got a fair amount of hot weather yet to come. Warmer today, but still quite pleasant.
After our long drought, we had several rainy days. We're still pretty far behind in annual rainfall and have lower water tables than we should, but we're been very thankful for the rain that has come in the last couple of weeks..
I've enjoyed listening to the katydids, who traditionally tell of the coming of the first frost - the old wives' tales say that the first frost will be 90 days after you first hear the katydids. Well, I heard them a bit early this year, so who knows what will happen! Also the tiny tree frogs really make a lot of music/noise at night about now - some evenings nearly drowning out the insects, owls, and coyotes! (and our Sweet P's, who love to sing in chorus with the coyotes!!!)

I managed to trace some bits and pieces of flowers for another fabric postcard this afternoon - it's just so doggoned tedious!! Wish it were easier. I work on the stitching when we're piled up in bed at night watching tv and relaxing. I've also been on a yo-yo making streak in the evenings when I didn't have any stitchery ready to do - figuring there'll be something to do with them down the road. I've just got a bag of small fabric scraps and some circle templates cut from an old x-ray film by the bed.
Evan's rheumatoid arthritis is really giving him fits the last couple of days and it just hurts me to see him in such pain. And he's got some bulldozer work to finish up, not to mention finishing up with the meter box for the water line for the ballfield sprinkler system at RCA, our church congregation's Christian school. Prayer is what is seeing us through these days.
We have so many blessings, though - just a few of which are each other, living on our farm in the midst of the glories of creation, daughter Beth and her hubby Joshua living nearby, Beth teaching at RCA and excited about it, good friends . . . and on and on.

I hope you all have a wonderful week!!!