Mountain Musings

Giveaway Winner Announced!

It's time to announce the winner of our Vision Forum DVD Giveaway! Thank you to all who commented and/or blogged about the exciting opportunity to receive the Reclaiming the Culture DVD series. There were 41 commenters on this post, a record number, and we wish each one of you could win!

To choose the successful recipient's name, we used a random number generator.

So, without further ado, the winner of the contest is Emily, who blogs over at One Girl's Journey of Doing Hard Things! Congratulations!

Emily, please email us (girotti at wildblue dot net) your complete name and address, and we will contact VF and let them know to ship you your prize! We hope you and your family are able to benefit much from these films.

~Hannah

A Sunday Thought

Bless the LORD, O my soul: and all that is within me, bless his holy name. Bless the LORD, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits. Psalm 103:1-2

 

Girls Day Out ~ Tea & Quilts

Today Hannah, Sarah, and I traveled to Harrisonburg for a special treat--lunch at Mrs. Hardesty's Tea Room.

The decor was definitely a tea-lover's dream! Tiny little teacups were hanging from the lace curtains, little salt and pepper teapots were on our table, along with fresh flowers, and there were a variety of beautiful teacups on every table.

Hannah and Sarah are looking over the selection of teas on the menu. You can see the curio cabinet to Sarah's right which displayed teapots and teacups. Our lunch was delicious. Hannah and I tried the mango mist iced tea with our meal, and all three of us split a cinnamon scone with raspberry jam for dessert. Yummy.

The picture above shows the checkout counter with hanging teacups on a wrought-iron rack (far left), a beautiful teacup wall quilt (center), and a stenciled "One lump or two?" on the wall (top).

After our lunch we strolled around the patio area where many beautiful flowers were in bloom. It was a delightful excursion.

Next on today's agenda: Shenandoah Valley Quilters Guild Quilt Show where we viewed many intricate and beautiful quilts--over 250 were displayed!

Here's a big scrap quilt using hundreds of small scraps. Even though this pattern had no rhyme or reason, I liked this one because maybe I could do one like it!

The quilt on the right was sewn and entered in the show by a man--I really didn't know that men liked to quilt! It's called Mariner's Doom, is quite intricate, and was entered in the Art Quilts category.

We had a wonderful Saturday outing! Thanks for touring along with us!

~Deb

Hens & Chicks Part 2

This morning I planted five of the six hens and chicks I needed to fill our new jug that I mentioned in a previous post. Two Lowe's stores yielded only five plants, so there's one empty hole around the backside.

And when I planted them earlier today, nothing was blooming. This afternoon when I went outside to take a picture, there were already two dainty pink blooms. Can you see them?

And check out that hen (or is it a chick?) in the top of the jug. Look at that l-o-n-g stem with a bud on the end.

How will I know when they have babies? And can one of those babies fill that empty sixth hole without me trying to buy another one?

I don't think I know all I should know about this venture. But when they grow a little more, I'll post a final follow-up picture.

~Deb

Keepers at Home ~ Quilling

Last month the ladies and girls in our church family gathered again for a time of learning skills together. The last two times we taught cake decorating and knitting; this time Anna, 11 years old, shared with us the art of quilling which she had taught herself.

We first met for breakfast, and Anna had prepared a delicious meal of rhubarb coffeecake, breakfast casserole, banana bread, and fruit for us all to enjoy. Everyone's place card included different examples of quilling for decoration.

What is quilling? "Quilling, or Paper Filigree, is an art form that involves the use of strips of paper that are rolled, shaped, and glued together to create decorative designs. The paper is wound around a quill to create a basic coil shape. The paper is then glued at the tip and the coil shaped; these shaped coils are arranged to form flowers, leaves, and various ornamental patterns similar to ironwork."

Each girl had a kit of colorful strips of quilling paper and the small tool necessary to roll the strips tightly. Anna described to us the history and process of quilling. We cut our strips into pieces of certain lengths, practiced coiling them with our tool, and glued them together. It took good hand-eye coordination to work with this detailed craft!

Anna helped each girl get their technique perfected. Our youngest participant was 6 years old, and she really did a good job and enjoyed it. Anna told us many ways in which one can use quilling, such as decorating thank-you notes or baby announcements. She had created grapes, watermelon, and other fruits for refrigerator magnets. Years ago her grandmother used quilling to embellish her own wedding invitations. There are so many simple or ornate possibilities.

Everyone went home with several completed types of flowers (see Anna's examples on the left below) and the incentive to do more quilling. We all enjoyed the fellowship and the opportunity to work on a creative project with our hands!

~Hannah

Fresh-Squeezed Grand Opening!

Today is the Grand Opening of Randi's online fabric shop! I just visited and oohed and aahed over her choices of fat quarters and fabric bundles! Not only that...but some of her fabric will be winging its way to Virginia! I loved the Ginger Blossom selections.

If you'd like a chance to win some of the Fresh Squeezed fabric Randi's giving away for her Grand Opening, check out her blog I Have To Say and leave a comment to encourage her and help celebrate this new home business venture!

~Deb

Bloomin' Tuesday

It is a wonderfully crisp 59 degrees early this morning in the Valley. The windows are open with a gentle breeze blowing, the sun is up, the birds are chirping, the mountains are a beautiful blue, and of all things, I've been outside in my night clothes chasing rabbits out of my flower beds!  Today is a good day for working outside. First things first...I'll work on mending some chicken wire along the fence property line!

For today's Bloomin' Tuesday I wanted to show you the left and right front corners of our garden. Inside the garden is Hannah's domain; the flower beds outside and around the garden are mine to enjoy working.

On the left corner is the catmint plant. All day long dozens of white butterflies delight in flitting around its purple blooms, along with too-many-to-count buzzing bumblebees. Just behind the red birdhouse on the other side of the catmint is a hibiscus that will bloom later this season.

Hey, what's this...if the vegetables grow inside, then what's a squash plant doing growing outside the garden?!  We found this healthy squash smothering the "moonbeam" coreopsis, so instead of pulling it up we found a trellis and tied it away from the dainty yellow blooms. The stokes aster crouching behind it hasn't bloomed yet. The faded garden sign hanging from the fence says, Love Grows Here, although I'm not sure I love that squash there!

Here's the right corner anchored by another catmint plant. To the far left is yarrow, beside it another plant that I'm not sure what it is until it blooms this year, and a volunteer sunflower. Just behind the catmint is another bed of coneflower and further down just out of sight are black-eyed susans (hopefully blooming for a future post) and a false indigo bush. Just inside the garden below the yellow birdhouse are dahlias in the corner. I love, love, love my flowers!

To see other Bloomin' Tuesday posts, head over to MsGreen "thumb" Jean's blog.

~Deb

Reclaiming the Culture DVD Giveaway

It's time for our special giveaway!

Vision Forum has recently released a new DVD Series for the Christian family, featuring speakers Geoff Botkin, Doug Phillips, Ray Comfort, Paul Jehle, and Anna Sophia and Elizabeth Botkin. We will soon be reviewing this set here on Mountain Musings as part of being an affiliate, but for now, we have the chance to hold a giveaway for our blog readers!

The titles in this series include:

• The Promise: The Beauty and Power of the Fifth Commandment
• What is Biblical Femininity? 
• Training Dominion-Oriented Daughters 
• Foundational Elements of a Godly Estate
• Providential Nexus of Jamestown and Plymouth
• We Cannot But Speak
• Guerilla Apologetics for the Glory of God

More titles will be periodically added to this collection. We have heard some good things about these messages and look forward to seeing for ourselves. Listen to sample clips from the presentations here.

If you make a comment on this post, you will be entered to win the entire set of 7 Reclaiming the Culture DVDs! If you post about this giveaway on your blog and link to this post, you will be entered twice!

This contest is open to those in the U.S. and Canada, as well as members of the U.S. armed forces. Please make your entry by the deadline of Sunday, June 29, at 9:00 p.m. EST. We will post our winner on Monday, June 30.

~Hannah

Interesting India

Today our church family enjoyed hosting a missionary from India who is in the States for a few months visiting churches and sharing his ministry. Mr. S. works among his native people training pastors, doing translation work, and going out into the villages to share the gospel. The picture above shows our guest pointing to the town in India where his wife and children reside.

We always enjoy the fellowship meal together each Sunday, and today was extra special listening to Mr. S. talk more about the challenges he faces and also the rewards of seeing the Lord answer prayer and change a person's life. As you can see, unfortunately two other families were missing today and didn't get to hear about the work in India. We always miss our friends when we're not worshipping together.

We appreciate Mr. S. coming to share his heart with us. His prayer card with his family's picture has been added to the front of our refrigerator so we can remember to pray for them. I hope you enjoyed hearing about our Sunday.

~Deb

P. Buckley Moss Museum

Here are some photos from my adventure yesterday when I met my friend, Nancie, at P. Buckley Moss Museum.

I was the first to arrive, so I strolled the shady grounds observing the variety of plants growing.

Here are some plants blooming that I have never seen before. Anyone know what they are? Hannah guessed they were flowering tobacco. The leaves look like weeds, actually; but the dainty trumpet-like flowers were beautiful.

How would you like to rock awhile on this spacious porch? This is where I parked myself until my friend arrived. It was so quiet and peaceful, and I was wishing that I had brought my knitting along with me.

Below are a couple of pictures to show you Pat Moss's style--black lines, geese, Amish families, black cats, and trees just to name a few.

And at left is my friend, Nancie, standing by another of the geese paintings. 

This was very interesting--we learned on the tour that Pat Moss never paints the geese's feet in a painting; they are always covered to symbolize not being prideful.

We had a wonderful time at the museum, at lunch, and catching up with each other! The day was definitely an adventure! :)

~ Deb