Mountain Musings

Busy, Busy October!

Hello, faithful blog readers! Yes, we're still here even though the blogging has been sparse this month.

The craft show started the month off with a bang; then our guests were here, fall gardening and the planting of 38 blueberry bushes (what was I thinking??), building on Jonathan's house, the never-ending farmers' market...we've been busy, but not so much on the computer this month, huh?

There are a slew of posts backed up...lots of pictures on my camera that was lost and finally found....oh, I just have tons of excuses, don't I? :)

Anyway, stay tuned for a couple of posts this week and more to follow after the NCFIC conference.

And...has your October been busy, too?

~Deb

The Simple Woman's Daybook ~ June

Has it really truly been this long since we've posted??!! Yes, I have gotten emails about that! I guess everyone is tired of gaining weight from looking at Sarah's dessert on the last post! LOL!

As is my usual habit, when there's a lot to catch up on I write a Daybook post:

For Today: June 3

Outside my window...What a great day to work outside! The overcast afternoon was just perfect for working in the garden. Temps were in the upper 70's--great for a half-day vacation for Tom to work on the "honey-do" list--mostly tilling the garden for planting!

I am thinking...that I'm liking Tom around the house and look forward to another day off from work tomorrow--but not a day off from working! I looove crossing things off lists!

I am thankful...that my wisdom tooth extraction is done and over with. Last week was unbelievable, and I'm still recovering. Wisdom tooth removal over 60 is quite different that it was for the kids at 20!

In the kitchen...Sarah took over kitchen duties tonight since I was weed-whacking, watering plants, and planting the Mother's Day roses. Grilled tilapia with coconut lime rice served with grilled onions and red peppers and breadsticks...and our choice of pecan pie, lemon meringue pie, oatmeal cookies, and fun-fetti cookies that didn't sell at Farmers' Market this week...awww! :)

I am wearing...work clothes: paint-splotched--patched--holey, navy skirt and a paint-splotched aqua tee-shirt. Dirty Sneeks.

I am creating...nothing at the moment. My quilt block was completed two weeks ago for class this coming Saturday. No rushing to meet the deadline this week! It just won't feel the same. I'll take a picture and show you later.

I am going...to take Granny back to the spine doctor on Monday the 10th. She stopped physical therapy because of an out-of-the-blue severe back pain that developed. We're not sure if there's yet another fracture, a pulled muscle, or another bout of hip bursitis. Please pray for her as she's very discouraged after being laid up for so long.

I am hoping...that the swarm of bees that Jonathan caught in one of our trees recently will like their new hive and location. There are photos and a story that accompany those bees...but it's his story to tell...maybe soon he'll post about his adventure.

I am looking forward to...seeing friends later this month when they travel by our way towards their anniversary destination....wish I could go with them, but it is their anniversary!

I am reading...mostly blogs - I learn so much sometimes from other folks' postings. Recently I found out about Two Old Goats pain relief lotion on a blog and immediately purchased some. I'm loving the results!

Around the house...Sarah has re-arranged her room in anticipation of her new bed being assembled and placed in there. Pictures coming when it's set up.

A favorite quote for today..."To dig and delve in nice clean dirt can do a mortal little hurt." ~ John Kendrick Bangs via Susan Branch.

One of my favorite things...springtime mulch! A new pile of mulch arrived and is waiting for my attention. Looks like Two Old Goats will be put to the test!

A few plans for the rest of the week: not much on the docket except working outside while great temps and nice sunny days are on tap for this week.

Other adventures since our last post...traditional Memorial Day geo-cacheing around the area. I'm not into snakes and poison ivy, so I waited in the car at each cache stop....and a good time was had by all!

Tom and I also manned a craft show booth with soap and baskets this past Saturday--will write about that later this week.

A peek into one of my days...Jonathan having fun with his bee suit at my expense!
~ Deb

And a New Year Begins...

January begins another year of blogging for us...in fact, this month we're beginning our 9th year of writing Mountain Musings. There have been over 1,800 posts and just over 10,000 comments!

We are grateful to you, our readers, for making it all worthwhile! Thank you! We pray that your New Year will be one of health, happiness, and many other blessings.

Up next: a vintage quilted table runner I gifted for Christmas...stay tuned! 

~ Deb

A Simple Woman's Daybook

FOR TODAY, Thursday, May 31

Outside my window...the sun's not up yet, but it's promising to be a beautiful, sunny 80 degree day here in the Valley...the mountains are just beautiful in the distance. I love living here!

I am thinking...that today will be another good day to work outside pulling weeds and mulching the flowers. I have a deadline...company's coming next weekend!

I am thankful...for a good night's sleep after yesterday's yard work.

In the kitchen...Thursdays are bread-baking days for Hannah, so the kitchen will be smelling yummy.

I am wearing...a very paint-stained navy skirt and top...my usual work outside clothes.

I am creating...nothing at the moment. I'm waiting for this fabric to arrive next week. I have a deadline for this, too!
 
I am going...to pick Strawberries here this morning with Sarah. We haven't been all season, so we're looking forward to fresh berries...over pound cake and whipped cream.

I am reading...a free issue of Organic Gardening magazine.

I am hoping...this Saturday will be perfect weather for continuing to paint the fence. Severe thunderstorms are predicted Friday which may mean my main fence-painter will be getting power restored instead of painting--I hope not.

I am looking forward to...my sister coming to visit the end of June. She wants to go to Farmer's Market to check out the girls' booth while she's here.

Around the house...basket-making, bread-baking, bean planting, beekeeping, and hole digging for red hot pokers I received for Mother's Day.

A favorite quote for today...

“Hospitality fleshes out love in a uniquely personal and sacrificial way. Through the ministry of hospitality, we share our most prized possessions. We share our family, home, finances, food, privacy, and time. Indeed, we share our very lives. So, hospitality is always costly. Through the ministry of hospitality, we provide friendship, acceptance, fellowship, refreshment, comfort, and love in one of the richest and deepest ways possible for humans to understand. Unless we open the doors of our homes to one another, the reality of the local church as a close-knit family of loving brothers and sisters is only a theory.”—Alexander Strauch, The Hospitality Commands

One of my favorite things...going on a day-adventure!

Here's a picture thought I'm sharing...

Jonathan and Sarah finding a geo-cache ~ Memorial Day near Swoope.

See more Simple Woman Daybook entries here.

~Deb

If We Twittered...

I'd tweet that I'm planting my annuals this afternoon:

Red and purple verbena are in the pots down the steps on the left, and begonias will be in the watering cans on the right. I still have geraniums and three red hot pokers (a Mother's Day gift) to plant tomorrow. 

Hopefully, my brain can get out of this blogging slump, and I can get back to posting...or some quick tweeting.

~Deb

My Day in Pickens ~ Meeting a Sweet Blogger in Real Life

Last week I was traveling to SC to visit my sister and also to pick up Granny and bring her back to Virginia with me.

Lisa, who blogs over at Shady Grove Adventures, had invited me to come to her neck of the woods whenever I was in the area again. Lisa and I are blogging and email buddies, but we had never met in real life (until last Monday).

I LOVE adventures and just couldn't pass up Lisa's invitation, so we emailed and set up a time to visit and have lunch together. Granny wanted to come with me, so we drove the hour out to her place and had a delightful time! Lisa really showed us some wonderful South Carolina hospitality!

As soon as we arrived, Granny and I spotted a "Club Car"...and Granny has been saying how much she needs a golf cart to get her from the house down to her basket shed (my garden shed) and back up the hill!

So Lisa gave her a ride to try it out! I think Granny really liked it!

We enjoyed seeing the chicken yard, and Lisa showed us one of her prize chickens up close and personal.

I'm not sure if the fresh eggs in our delicious quiche for lunch was from this particular chicken or not, but if so, she did herself proud!

After a grand tour of Lisa's house, including her wonderful sewing room and seeing sewing and knitting projects she's working on, she presented me with my very own walking stick! Her husband Tom had made it especially for me from a sassafras tree on their property! I was thrilled and very touched at their thoughtfulness! 

So while Lisa prepared lunch (quiche, garlic-cheese biscuits and fresh fruit with Hummingbird Cake for dessert--oh yummy!)...I participated in craft time!

Lisa put beads, cording, and string on the table for me to make myself a name bracelet to add to the top of the walking stick. I loved making it!! Thank you, Tom, for such a very nice walking stick!

We took pictures out on the deck after a tour around the outside of the house (loved the raised beds!), and so soon it was time to leave.

Then Lisa presented me with three plants from their property to bring home as parting gifts: a dogwood tree, a container of 10+ Bird-foot Violet plants, and a Passionflower plant. Ooh, I hope all these plants live so I can have a remembrance of our special day together.

You can see pictures of what the plants will look like over on Lisa's blog here. And also she wrote such a delightful post about our visit.

Thank you so much, Lisa! Granny and I thoroughly enjoyed our day with you and our adventure in Pickens!

I love meeting bloggers in real life!

~Deb

Good Fortune Notebook

Speaking of beautiful quilting fabrics...my favorite fabric designer is Kate Spain, and one of her newest lines of fabrics is Good Fortune, seen here at Fat Quarter Shop.

Yesterday the mailman surprised me with a package sent all the way from Michigan from Stephanie, also known as Mama Pea of Peas in a Pod blog.

Stephanie and I have struck up a blogging friendship over the past months (we're both wanna-be UFO-ers), and she made this beautiful notebook and sent it to me:

I LOVE it! And I especially love the panel of words she sewed to the front of the notebook. I'll definitely use it for lots of lists and things I should remember and don't, plus it's made from beautiful Good Fortune fabric!!

Here's a photo showing both the back and front:

I love how blogging makes the world seem smaller! Thank you so much, Stephanie!

~Deb

A Simple Woman's Daybook

For today: Thursday, January 12

Outside my window...the heavy rain from last night is over, and the sky is a mixture of sun and clouds with an expected high in the 50s.

I am thinking...about Granny. My sister called 9-1-1 this morning, and Granny was rushed to the hospital's heart center in downtown Greenville with some atrial fibrillation problems. Hopefully, she'll be released today. It's hard being long-distance and not able to help.

I am thankful...that Tom's colonoscopy procedure yesterday went well. He's back at work today and feeling fine. I think this week has had its quota of medical drama!

In the kitchen...today is bread baking day! The smells wafting upstairs are wonderful! I wish I could send Granny a freshly-baked, buttered, hot-from-the-oven roll for her lunch!

I am wearing...navy turtleneck, navy skirt, and navy crocs.

I am creating...my Saturday Sampler block for the quilt class on Saturday.

I am going...to Patchwork Plus this weekend for our last class for this pattern. New fabrics will be introduced for the next 12-month class...still deciding whether I should sign up or not.

I am wondering...what my little grandson Ethan is doing today in faraway Michigan. He called and "talked" to Hannah this week and told her Happy Birthday over and over and over! Sooo cute!

I am reading...a friendship card I received in the mail with a wonderful Mango Peach tea bag inside. A friend sent a card to me and also to each of the girls telling us that January is National Hot Tea Month. I never knew! Thank you, Kendra!

I am hoping...I'll continue to be diligent to write in the One Line A Day (five-year memory book) my sister gave me for Christmas. So far I've not missed a day.

I am looking forward to...tomorrow's quilting class with friends.

I am learning...that it's a lot of work to organize all my fabric, projects, and supplies so it will be easy to know which project to work on next.

Around the house...Hannah just left to take some bread over to her bartering partner in exchange for fresh farm eggs.

A favorite quote for today..."Never mind if you think you are unable to take another step, for either He will strengthen you to make you able, or He will call a sudden halt, and you will not have to take it at all." ~ Frances Ridley Havergal

One of my favorite things...sitting down to supper with the family.

A few plans for the rest of the week: taking time out to get some photos burned to disks and mailed out.

A peek into my week...

See more Simple Woman's Daybook entries here.

~Deb

'Tis the Season...

...for everything this month but blogging and blog reading! But here's a post to catch you up a bit!

Actually, this may be the first Christmas in quite the number of years that I'm not rushing to finish a quilt, a scrapbook, or some other crazy project I started waaay too late to remain sane! I really miss the adrenaline rush and excitement that a "gotta-get-'er-done" project generates! Tell me what you're rushing to finish this last week before Christmas--I'll pray that you finish in time--I've been there, done that!

Instead we've been focusing on other activities such as:

• Enjoying a couples' lunch date with our long-time friends, Fred and Chris
• Inviting my friend, Dorothy, to visit for some Valley adventures and overnights
• Hosting missionary friends from PNG who were passing through our area
• Experiencing a just-opened little coffee house in Crozet with Tom (for sandwiches but not the coffee, thank you though!)
• Packaging up basket and soap orders (there's still time to order before Christmas---limited selection of baskets left--contact Hannah for availability)
• And preparing for my sister to arrive in a few days to spend Christmas with us. Busy but fun times!

Here are some photos to share of the above special times together:

When the miles separate friends...you find ways to get together and keep up with each others' lives. This particular Saturday found us traveling to Richmond to meet Fred and Chris, who had traveled from Newport News to join us, and then we ate together at Whole Foods Grocery...yes, a grocery store with an out-of-this-world gourmet salad bar!

We girls talked quilts, of course! Chris brought her recently completed Christmas quilt to show me. Isn't the snowflake quilting on the back just wonderful?!

My friend, Dorothy--a faithful blog reader and commenter--came to visit last week, and we took in the sights in the area. From the Dayton Farmer's Market and Virginia Quilt Museum in Harrisonburg to Woodrow Wilson's Birthplace and the Pampered Palate and neat shops downtown, we thoroughly enjoyed the time together. Here's Dorothy just before she left:

Our friends, Kim and Annie, who have been missionaries for quite a number of years in Papua New Guinea, were headed to Kentucky to spend Christmas with family when they stopped by this week. What a treat to catch up on all their news and understand better how to pray for their situation.

Here's Annie after breakfast sharing pictures with Granny of their village and translation work:

And Kim and Jonathan enjoyed some pickin' and grinnin' and entertained us with their music:

And...all too soon it was time for them to get on the road, too. I'm reminded so many times when friends come and leave that one day there will be no sad good-byes.

Below: the Green House Coffee Shop where Tom and I enjoyed a delicious lunch yesterday. If you're ever over the mountain near Crozet, I would recommend the hot and toasty Southwest Turkey Panini.

Special thanks to my friend, Kendra over at Kendra's Korner, who blogged about her trip to Green House or I never would have known about the place.

These next few days I'll be planning the menu and preparing ahead just a bit for my sister's arrival on Tuesday. I hope you're enjoying this wonderful season, too, with friends and family. Take lots of pictures and make lots of memories!

 ~ Deb

Post Road Vintage..A New Love

Recently Heather, over at Post Road Vintage blog (farmhouse decoration plus homemade inspiration!), posted a photo of her mason jar chick feeder filled with chocolate chips and M&Ms. You can view and purchase it here. Neat idea!

And you can see all her Post Road Vintage products for sale here and here.

Heather asked her email newsletter subscribers to send in some creative ideas of how they would use her chick feeder. She's in the midst of her winter photo shoot for her shop and wanted to go with a winter-white theme.

I sent in my idea of filling her blue mason jar with cotton balls. She did an excellent job photographing that idea, don't you think?

Anyway...she picked my idea!!! How fun! You can read about it here. So...one of these unique chick feeders is winging its way this week to Mountain Musings all the way from snowy Lake Linden, Michigan. Thank you, Heather!

I'm planning on filling it with cotton balls and placing it on my bathroom counter as soon as it arrives!

Why not head over to her shop and check out her other Mason jar treasures!

~Deb