Friday Ponderings....

Our lives are constantly being woven together, moment by moment, day after day, month after month, year after year...

God uses all of the tangibles of this world, people, circumstances, events...to work out all of the intangibles He is more interested in. Drawing all of the weaknesses out of us: fear, anger, impatience, immaturity...and replacing them with courage, joy, longsuffering patience, and wisdom...

As the song Great Is Thy Faithfulness goes..."Strength for today and bright Hope for tomorrow"

God is good. He knows the plans HE has for us, even when we DON'T!..and HE is truly the master weaver, making ALL things , ALL moments, All circumstances, All of our days ....ALL of them... come together and seamlessly work FOR GOOD...and He weaves...and when the fabric is finished, the colorful tapestry, oh what a work of beauty it will be. Those DARK threads HE was weaving during dark moments...outline even more perfectly the lovely masterpiece that only the Creator could have known and presented...in the end.

This is my strength today. I believe it, and I hold on to it. It's a sure thing.

Today I am posting some miscellaneous pics just for fun and for memory...


FOR FUN...because it is do darn cute...
Woobie "Devil-Dawg"....well....not this night...terrible fear of thunder, trying to hide...





Favorite Cottage of the day...in her new duds...**below is a "before" a few summers back...





This photo from the past gives a good idea of what this lot is like in the summertime. We are completely surrounded by trees. It is an escape from the 90-100 degree Southern Summer days, when you pull up the drive. We feel like we are entering a Shady Haven. It is wonderful. Wonderful....


My favorite view from inside the house, looking out.

There is a place in Charlotte named "Winghaven Gardens." A woman named Elizabeth Clarkson started it all.


She was not your garden variety gardener. She developed her formal garden as a habitat for songbirds—long before the horticultural concept of the garden as habitat existed.

I can not tell you how many times I have had people walk into our yard and make the same comment...that it was like a little Winghaven, because of the habitat that just supports birds...and the trees...so many birds singing and chirping all the time... I cherish it. and so I dub our feeding area, Little Winghaven. :-) If you are out in the driveway late in the evening, you can hear the mockingbird in the wooded lot next door in full symphony. I have counted 20 different bird sounds in one evening, as he perfectly mimics them all. If you venture out Very late...around midnight sometimes, you can hear the owls in their cacophony..it sounds like monkeys in a jungle, no kidding....awesome...
and on Spring and Summer days, we hear the Hawks as they call loudly to each other. Here is a baby that was born high up in one of our trees several summers ago. Jonny captured some photos and video as he was doing his test flights...


When we pull into the driveway and shut the gate, it feels like a getaway...an escape from all that is "out there", and entering into a shelter of peace...THIS is what OUR NEST should be for our family...



Lay down your burdens...rest a spell..














Chicken coop/pen...now clean and empty for the next family to cherish...(shhh..yes even in this little suburbia...) what a fun thread woven into our lives while we were here...














our very worn...but cherished back deck...freshened up with paint.



When it is cool in the mornings, Kurt and I love to sit out here with a mug of coffee and the dawgs, and catch a breeze...and talk...taking a moment, to make a moment...GRATEFUL we got 2 mornings to get JUST that when he was last here...



{{{a metamorphosis segway}}} This special piece was chipped, RUSTY and showing age, wear and tear, when I got it last Fall. It was in the garage. When Kurt and the boys were marking stuff to throw out in the dumpster, they asked several times to throw this out. ***SHRIEK*** I actually loved it in it's shabby condition, but they don't GET IT...so I just said NO!!!! This past week, (for their approval) I painted it in an Ocean blue color and got it out of the garage and onto the deck...sigh...NOW I WILL WAIT for the weathering to happen again, and make "her" once again aged to perfection with blue showing through. :-)

This post is about our little spot on this earth. It is no fancy shmancy mansion, no well clipped and manicured estate... It is our home that shuts out the "stress of the OUTSIDE world"...It is where the days of our lives, all together under one roof, take place. It was and IS a gift from the hand of God. He knew exactly what we would need. It has been perfect for our needs and desires. A secret, sweet hideaway tucked away in this big sprawling city of Charlotte, NC.

It is MY nest.


**((my latest treasure, abandoned and empty, pulled out of the ivy over the chicken pen))


I am watching my fledglings leave the nest one by one. It is bittersweet, but I thank God that HE has everything in HIS hands...

Today, Kurt and I often repeat the phrase below to each other, as we look back and see how God ,in His faithfulness, even down to the 11th hour of finding THIS house, believe He will do the same in Iowa...

THERE IS A PLACE ...JUST FOR US...AND GOD KNOWS WHERE IT IS....

and as my Dad often states to me in these days:

GOD IS NEVER LATE, AND VERY SELDOM IS HE EARLY....


God's timing is perfect. We will trust in this.

As I close this long post, I believe I can state that there can be no doubt in any visitor's mind today to ask WHY?... about what I have always testified to..

I am a Homebody...



I find happiness in my own back yard, and I love my home, my wonderful husband, and my beautiful and cherished kids, and my furry beasts... I thank God with all my heart for all the gifts and treasures HE has bestowed upon me in my journey through life. There are days and moments that are HARD!....but God is present...always there...strength for the journey.

I hope you feel the same way about your home too...

Hugs to all who popped in to my little corner of the world today to visit or say Hi...

The Life of a Marine Mama...and Care over the Tongue..

Got a text at 11 last night from my Marine...

"just got back from ((roommate's)) "21ST" birthday party. Was Designated Driver for a couple of guys back to their houses..."

text at 11:30pm

"Good nite!....Love you all."

text at 6:10 am this morning

"Good Morning!...about to head out to the Gas Chamber..."

***of course I replied - "Don't Breathe!!"


And here is a phone pic taken when aboard the USS PONCE a short while back...



We MM's know when the boys get bored they can do some loony stuff...Here's my Marine -out in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea (see that tight space?....wanna title this one CABIN FEVER???) dressed up as a teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle going around - jumping out scaring the padoodle out of guys and grabbing at their boots under the stairs in the stairwells...

(((that probably got rough and rowdy!)))

Justin said "I'm not a mutant...I'm a hero in a half-shell!! Turtle power!!!"

Love these guys...Normal He-men... having fun....looking for adventure....committed to doing the job no matter what...HEROES...facing all manner of horrific things we will never even imagine when in Combat Zones... Dedicated to carrying out Justice and completing their mission...totally loyal to their brothers...GOT YOUR BACK...NO man left behind...even if they have to die trying...TOUGH...BRAVE...a little rough around the edges sometimes...Sacrificing....Love their country...when life gets hard, and showers are few and far between, and water in their canteen is as warm as a bowl of steaming soup...and bed is a blanket on hard dirt...and the weather is soaking wet, with not a dry stitch on their bodies and they have another 8 miles to go, and their feet are blistered and hot and covered with athlete's foot...and they are eating the umpteenth MRE in a row with the same selections...
and the mail truck doesn't make it out for the 3rd time...(NO BOXES from HOME!!!) and a brother is wounded or killed, and they have to keep right on fighting with NO time to grieve in the moment....

And some people will carelessly and thoughtlessly comment..."Well, they DID sign up to be a Marine (or soldier, or sailor)...that's what they should expect!"

OH MY.....

As one of my Bloggy sisters said in a poignant post this week.

"What a difference a few words can make."

And I would add a twist here in this post....

"What a difference the right words can make...as opposed to the wrong words."




Yesterday I spoke of a fellow Marine's family who has their Marine returning stateside....badly injured...most likely both legs gone...

what words would I offer???



Thank you again for giving a moment of your day to whisper a prayer to God to strengthen this family as they go to meet their son under trying and grievous circumstances...that their great love for him will cover all silences where words are not needed...

WORDS...they can be a comfort

"Heaviness in the heart of man maketh it stoop: but a good word maketh it glad." Proverbs 12:25

"Pleasant words are as an honeycomb, sweet to the soul, and health to the bones." Proverbs 16:24


"A word fitly spoken is like apples of gold in pictures of silver." Proverbs 25:11



Hugs to any who are popping in. God BLESS you...

Please.....PRAY.

Asking all of my bloggy sisters who are faithful prayer warriors...
Please pray for Sgt. Raaz.

Kurt is a co-worker with this Marine's dad. Last week this hero stepped on an IED in Afghanistan. He is on his way to Bethesda... Please...asking prayer for his family as they wait for him, and for God to touch this Marine...

Courage....Strength...Endurance for the long-haul....HEALING....

Involved in an IED blast.....and Stepping on an IED.....two very different things.

My heart is breaking for them...

From one Marine Mom who knows the dreaded fear of hearing those words....

God bless you....

Changes on Woodberry...Gussied Up Kitchen

Well...the past week flew...we got more accomplished than I thought we ever could, and my Iowa Man worked like a Devil Dawg in overdrive...wow...I love him.
Three notebook pages of To-Do's....crossed out over and over and over...We worked hard...

Just for a summary in a nutshell:

As it turned out, and QUITE THE BUMMER AND LET DOWN for me...we ended up NOT meeting with the first two realtors we had scheduled...



Found out within 45 minutes of the first appt. that they were under Relocation Company guidelines to come in and take their photographs of the whole house inside and out, and exterior buildings, and fill out paperwork and express mail it to the Company in Iowa. THEN the realtors would come back at a later date with the returned package from Relocation people... and sit down and do an evaluation with us!! SHRIEK! we were cleaned and ready for an assessment, BUT NO WAY ready for pics. We were totally blind-sided...

We thought we were just touring and sitting down to get the value of our house and get an idea of what we would be asking....to help us better know what to look for in IOWA!
Plus we have not even "chosen" which realtor we want to serve us in selling this home.
NO GO!! So there is our first experience in working with Relocation circumstances! ppphhhtttt...

That's about all I have to say after confronting a major disappointment last week...BUT, I do KNOW THIS: that all things happen for a reason, and I do KNOW that God works all things for GOOD!!! even when you can't see the good...it's coming...just hang on, as my hubby keeps sayin'...and I keep saying to myself... "hold what ya got, girl"

The words to the Kansas song HOLD ON keep ringing and ringing in my head...anybody else know it?

Hold on, Baby Hold on
'Cause it's closer than you think
And you're standing on the brink
Hold on, Baby Hold on
'Cause there's something on the way
Your tomorrow's not the same as today...



GOD IS ALWAYS WORKING BEHIND THE SCENES.. I'll go marinate in that for a while this week.

I am doing another record in my Ejournal on line..about my kitchen...I mentioned some changes in an earlier post, and this post today is for my personal photo memory file to look back on.

In trying to update and "pretty-up" a room with as LITTLE MONEY AS POSSIBLE because of wallet resources, and because you are MOVING AWAY!....one must weigh and decide what is good enough, and then go for it...and so we tried...



Kitchen walls painted a fresh yellow,(now THAT photo is as close as you can get to the TRUE shade of yellow) ~ below chair-rail, "beadboard look" wallpaper to tie in the rest of the kitchen to the real beadboard put in behind the countertops.


detail look - less expensive and I knew I could do the wallpaper myself. Kurt or my dad would have had to do the cutting and securing of the "wood" beadboard...(this was the best choice for "resale".)


Put these metal scrolly pieces on the faux drawer fronts under the sink. look much prettier than the handles that were there. Only $2.50 at Hobby Lobby. (painted white)


Showing this pic again to record that this solid cast iron sink (SOOO heavy) white all the way through, was a find on Craig's List well over a year ago. Kurt drove out on a Sunday afternoon and bought it from a guy redoing a kitchen....for $20.00!! yep...a fantastic deal...as the sink looked like NEW! The Crazy faucet purchased from Lowe's cost 4 times as much as the sink!!! **that one hurt!


This is the other pair of cabinet doors I had my dad cut out and attach chicken wire to,
sprayed it white and hung two black and white tea towels I found (ties in the black furniture of the breakfast nook with the white kitchen.) The architectural piece over them I moved into the kitchen because it co-ordinated with the little scrolly drawer-fronts....and it added a little attention-getter or eye candy up there on the plain wood.


Including a repeat of the other chicken wire cabinet door changeover (in the out of reach cabinet doors) over the refrigerator. purely decorative and a light source now...


This is the set of doors I got my dad to cut out the center wood panels and install glass into for an updated look.


Another shot of the kitchen sink area to show the one larger glass door my Dad did for me years and years ago. I thought some more glass on the other wall would be good. And also will mention that before,....the wallspace between the countertops and under the cabinets (the backsplash areas) was yellow and also around the entire window space. But after installing the white beadboard, and having the all white cabinets, the yellow around the window up to the ceiling did NOT look right, so I opted to paint that whole drywalled area white, for consistency, and it looks SOOO much better to the eye...Everybody gave it two thumbs up.


Here is a long shot of some of the beadboard my dad installed. This was all done with maybe a little over half of ONE sheet of beadboard from Home Depot.


This is just a "little touch" that I found at a Goodwill in this whole kitchen process. It was a 5x7 mini-poster laying on the shelf beside two pieces of glass, all messed up. I put it all back together and got it for a dollar. It looks like it is just floating right there on the beadboard and adds just the pop of color to that corner. I love this print and it adds a little touch of Country French to the Cottage feel!


Purely cosmetic - changed out what was hanging here for another touch of black tying in the Breakfast nook again...one of my Tole Trays.


New(er) oven than the old dilapidated one I had (one burner didn't even work). Now THIS item needed to be replaced, but could have been a budget buster...I could have paid 4 to 500 dollars for a lower-end-of-the-line brand new oven (or NOT!) or look and look and look and search for a nice used one being sold...ended up Kam and I found this one at the appliance Habitat for Humanity store a little further out in Charlotte...It only needed to be scrubbed and polished. It works great and looks SO much better and has a drawer under it (my old one didn't) and it is a matching brand to the microwave over it. Looks like a set. And yes...I will tell you...it took $130.00 out of our budget. RAH!!! It helps a lot and is shiny and new looking...even the inside that I scoured!!!



New linoleum flooring. (If I had been doing this for me, I would have wanted grey slate larger tile. but NOT!!! ) KEEP THINKING RESALE Julie...NOT STAYING!!! The vinyl flooring was so much cheaper, and my dad and Kurt put it down in one afternoon and it saved SO much time. The touches of a yellow veining in it go with the walls too.


another purely cosmetic minor touch...Took the fan blades off and gave a fresh coat of glossy white, and then exchanged these cottage white cut globes for the old ribbed glass ones that used to be here. SO much prettier and such a small detail. And these globes run around 10-12 dollars a PIECE at Lowes...even the plain glass ones start at 5.99 each.
Found these and two more sets for other fans at the smaller Habitat Restore for $1.00 a piece...RAH!


I had keys hanging on holders on THREE different walls in my kitchen. With 6 people there were LOTS of keys for different things..While I was in TJ MAXX at one point this past Spring looking for a different TP holder for the boys bath...( yes! I was in a RETAIL store...wow) I went to the Clearance aisle before I left, and saw this board marked down so low, I literally grabbed it off the shelf. It was one of those things that you see and you know exactly what you are going to do with it and exactly where you are going to put it....right off the bat. And so here it hangs on the Kitchen/Den door with most of the keys on it. (A place for everything and everything in its place...yes my kids get tired of hearing that...)Less things hanging on the walls now.


For the record, (this particular memory post) a shot of the breakfast nook currently in black.


one change. when moving everything back into the kitchen, and at the same time trying to clean OUT my walk-in, I got inspired to try the RED mirror on the top of the Baker's Rack. (thought it would reflect light and make it a little brighter at night. ) It DID fit. I had originally gotten this at a GW about 2 years ago thinking I would put it out on the deck area under the overhang...but never had gotten around to it with LIFE happening.. turns out it was meant for here... :-)


Last photo entry is pure whimsy. Love this little vintage print. It is either painted or canvassed on a board...not sure how to describe it...


detailed look. I LOVE the art of the past. It is so adorable, and I love animal prints.

so for this ejournal post...closing out.
The Kitchen in my Cottage on Woodberry. May the next family love her and enjoy feathering her and filling her with love and strength and memories as much as we have....

Once again...we have, (I think) proven, that the power of CAN-DO attitude, and pure sweat equity, and shopping with extremely TIGHT hands on your wallet...watching and waiting for THAT SPECIAL DEAL...the Smith gang has done a pretty darn good job on making the kitchen look BETTER!. And of course my DAD is included big-time in that re-do!

Of course ALWAYS talking to God, and asking him to bless our efforts and our desires to do the very best we can...and to provide... God is good...all the time...God IS good....

Any visitor stopping by - You have a WONDERFUL DAY!!! I am TOTALLY vegging out...taking that Margin I read about in a fellow blogger's (Lisa) post today...Think DE-stress.....

I have a gal coming over at 5 today to look at and maybe purchase an ottoman I am selling on Craig's List...Better Scoot..

Many hugs handed out to Blog sisters...and I say today....



And to the Iowa Man....


And to the Marine...
Quit SCARING me about coming upon small alligators while you are out Kayaking!! shriek!

HAVE A GOOD ONE!!!