I think these are such cheerful flowers.  I like their bright color.  They are among the last of the flowers to bloom in one of my flower gardens.  Fall is definitely in the air here in Floyd.  Cooler temperatures at night.  Upper 50′s lower 60′s.  We even spotted one tree that is starting to change colors.  I love fall!  Many people say summer has long lazy days.  This is usually not true for me.  Fall is more of a slow down time for us.  Most of the canning is done.  We can slow down and enjoy the cooler days.  I love it!  Of course,  I have had to slow down a little earlier than planned this year but I think I have learned a lot from this experience.  What have I learned?  I need to slow down a little, enjoy life more, laugh more, do more things with my girls.  There is much to be said for teaching my girls how to can and take care of the house but also there is much to be said for picnics under oak trees and hikes down favorite trails.  Balance-I think it is all about balance. 

Yesterday the girls and I made homemade vegetable beef soup with homemade rolls.  It is starting to feel like soup weather.  I told the girls the other day, these cooler temperatures makes me want to open up new school books.  Amazing-cooler temps does not have the same effect on them.   We wanted to make chocolate chip cookies yesterday but did not get them done.  I think that will be a project for today.  If we get to make them, I will try to post the recipe we use.  We have some corn that needs to be pulled and worked up so I guess that too will be on the list for today.  My list is not near as long as it was before the back pain.

Enjoy your day and God bless.

Look at these beautiful little violas!  They were hidden away beside some other larger flowers.  I think they are so cute.  They reminded me about how sometimes the beautiful things of God are hidden.  He wants us to put forth a little effort to find them.  Reading and studying His word, praying.  These are all things He wants us to do in order to see His beauty.  But I think also He wants us to listen.  This seems to be the hardest part for me.  Satan obviously knows this because he continuously puts things in my path to distract me and, of course, I allow it to work.  I want to do better.  Spend more time with Him. 

What better place to spend more time with Him than right here.  My front yard-looking down at the field.  The cows are up for their morning snack.  The sun is shining and for today (just today) we are almost caught up with the canning.  The girls and I are going to have a “girl day”.  We have some errands to run and then maybe do some fun stuff in town.  We are thinking about going to Goodwill or the Salvation Army, maybe both.  We might even go to Books-A-Million.  I’m not sure yet what we will do, other than have fun.

One more flower picture.  I thought you all might be getting tired of seeing pictures of canning jars.  A little color was needed.  We’re off to enjoy our day.  God bless.

Daniel is having fun on his new swing set.  I think it was the highlight of his weekend.  We had a great visit.  Lots of good food and sunshine.  The temperature was extremely nice which made for an easy time hiding and hunting for eggs.  Temperature here is nice too.  Mid 70′s.  I love it.   Flowers are popping up everywhere.  It is so exciting!   I pray everyone had a nice Easter.  Take care and God bless.

We are  “bustin loose”, going where the temperature is going to be in the lower 50′s.  We will be seeing grass, flowers peeking up from the ground.  I can hardly wait.  My biggest plan is to get me some Daniel sugar, even if I have to hold him down to get it.  Dave will be doing some repairs to my computer.  Thanks Dave.  Well, enough talking.  We are out of here.  Take care and God bless.

These shots were taken last summer.  This is our home.  As I have said many times, I think we live in a very beautiful part of God’s creation.  Of course, today you would have to really look hard to find the house.  It kinda blends in with all the snow.  The snow stopped falling yesterday afternoon.  It’s very pretty, but I thought maybe I would post something else besides winter scenes.  I thought of flowers but decided to go with these pictures.  Yesterday and today were snuggle in days.  The girls and I watched the 2 disc movie of “Little House on the Prairie”.  We watched disc 1 yesterday and disc 2 today.  We enjoyed it a lot.  We are big fans of the Ingalls family.  I’ve worked on aprons and a little on Grace’s quilt/wallhanging.  I love snuggle in days.  Well, I think I’ll go play with my girls.  God Bless.

P.S.  I didn’t realize when I put the pictures on but they are almost the same.  Sorry about that but as I lack the computer skills to fix this mistake I had to leave it like it was.

I’ve probably posted this picture before, but I thought we might all need a little color today.  The Butterfly bush and the Rose of Sharon are always full of brillant color.  The rocks came from over the hill on the farm.  I got Marvin to bring them over on the tractor.  He said this was a first for him, usually people want to get the rocks out of their yard not put them in.  I think however it adds to the charm.  Today temperatures will probably be in the upper 20′s.  They say a chance of wintry mix for Friday.  February is almost here though.  Somehow in my mind, in February, my thoughts turn to spring, gardening, flowers, sunshine.   Winter,however, does allow more time for things like sewing, quilting, crocheting.  I am almost finished with Julie’s quilted wall hanging.  I will post a picture of it when I’m finished.  I attempted to make homemade hamburger buns yesterday.  I do not own a hamburger bun pan so I thought I might could put them in my cast iron biscuit pan.  Not a good idea.  The tasted good, however, they looked like jumbo muffins.  We ate them last night covered with cooked deer and gravy and mashed potatoes.  No one seemed to mind how they looked.  I don’t like to give up though so I will try another approach next time.  Well, better get started on school.  God Bless.

I thought with winter so hard on us, we could use a little summer.  These are from my flower garden this summer and I thought they looked very cheerful.  The girls and I did something new this week.  We made butter.   This was a new experience for us.  It was a lot of fun.  We collected cream from our milk, added a little salt, put it in a quart jar and began to shake.  No we did not have a churn, but it was not necessary for the small amount we made.  We had about 1 cup of cream to begin with and ended up with about 1/2 cup of butter.  Pretty exciting stuff.  I also made a batch of laundry soap this week.  We all went yesterday and got much needed haircuts.  Gotta look good for those Christmas pictures.  The weather forecast for this weekend is snow.  Perhaps many inches of snow.  I love snow!   Hopefully we won’t have to postpone our visit with Chuck and the grandkids.  I guess we’ll just have to wait and see.  The other morning our pond was completely frozen.  A goose was walking across it.  I ran to get the camera, however by the time I got back the goose was gone.  It would have made a great picture.  It’s time for us to start working.  School and all that fun stuff.  God Bless.

Happy Birthday to my little Daniel.  May God bless you throughout your life.  May you always enjoy the flowers.  MawMaw loves you.

I thought I would share some of my flowers with you.  The second picture is of the garden.  The third is my most favorite spot in the entire yard.  I love to sit on this swing and enjoy the view.   My hubby redid the swing last year.  It was one of those from Wal-Mart with fabric for the seat.  It also had a fabric cover on top however one Floyd winter can destroy much.  We have lots of high wind here so of course the top was the first to go,  another year or so and the seat was  in really bad shape.  So he ripped all that out and put treated wood on it.  I love it.  God and I have so many special talks right here in this swing.   Early spring pictures from my swing.  Enjoy