Sweet gift from sweet hubby

I casually mentioned the last time we ate Asian food that I had always liked the soup spoons that all Asian restaurants seem to have. Sweet Jeff was in Oklahoma City last week and found these at a specialty store. Even Jeff is getting in to the pink things I seemed so drawn to anymore.

My family is so sweet that I have to be careful ever saying I want something unless I really want it because they will try to get it for me.

I won a Blog contest

Don't you just love this rose covered mousepad? I won it a blog contest from http://casualcottage.blogspot.com/2007/03/we-have-winner.html

It is truly beautiful and so well made.

Thank you so much, Marilyn.

Garage Sale finds

DD Nina and I got up early Saturday morning hoping to find some good sales. We think we hit the jackpot. She was mostly looking for vases for the centerpieces at wedding and big glass containers to use on the candy bar. She found at least 6 beautiful vases and 2 jars (I lost count)

After shopping for 2 hours, we had a nice breakfast at Panera Bread.

It was really nice morning and I think we both burned off some of our wedding preparation

tension.

8 blue napkins were 50 cents

Pampered Chef chopper 25 cents

patchwork potholder 10 cents!!!

vintage salt and pepper shakers 10 cents each

airbake cookie sheet 25 cents

table cloth, red checks, new in package for $1

The chairs and mirror were all $1 each and I think they give our front door some charm.

Brand new His and Hers embroidered pillow cases, 50 cents each. I think they were a wedding gift but the couple did not appreciate them. But I sure do.

This little table was $5 and I will probably paint it white. The frames and silver jewelry box were all 25 cents each. I think the silver frame will be even more beautiful with a picture of my sweet Nina and her John after they get married.

Whats new at my home

Fresh baked banana pecan bread on a cutting board made years ago in Vacation Bible School by son Jimmy . He will be graduating this week with his second BA and starts law school in August.

The pretty aqua tea pot was a gift from my Secret Sister.








New sofa pillows.














The tree is not new but we have never had a flower bed around it. The flowers are all pink,
hydrangeas, impatiens and dianthus.



The bush in the corner is called a blushing bride hydrangea and is covered with buds, the picture just doesn't show them.







A hydrangea up close.
The mulch is Oklahoma Cedar and smells as good as it looks.

Kaleidoscope

KALEIDOSCOPE
by
Vera Long


The greenest green I ever saw was not a patch of spring grass, a lizard or a grasshopper. It slithered along on top of the okra vines, onto the fence, and over the gate. It stopped and looked at me to see if I was going to catch its long, stretched-out body.

“It’s a garden snake, harmless, eats bugs, and aphids. Leave it alone,” Mama said, in answer to my screams. “Kids used to catch them to play with.”

The bluest blue came not from a tub of blue rinse-water as I wrung out the washing, or an artist’s paintbrush, nor my dotted Swiss prom dress, or your new necktie, nor any summer sky. I saw this bluest blue the first time I looked into your eyes.

The reddest red I ever saw was not a strawberry, not a hummingbird throat, not a ruby ring, not the scarlet berries of a haw bush, and not a rose. It was your lips, smeared with my lipstick, our first kiss.


The pinkest pink was the cheek of our first-born in her tatting-trimmed pink piqué dress and bonnet.

The whitest white was the snow on our first Christmas together.

The blackest black was the day you had to leave me.

Where did the time and colors go?



Vera Long is the winner of the 2006 Anderbo Poetry Contest. Now a widow, she has been writing Country Poetry for sixty years, living in rural Oklahoma. She has written poems about life and love, time and place and family life. Many of her poems can be found in various anthologies and on-line. She is listed in Who’s Who of American Women for her poetry. Vera and her late husband, Othadell Long, were married almost 57 years. She still lives on their farm near her two children. She belongs to the Oklahoma Poetry Society and is Secretary of Stillwater Writers Group.


Mrs. Long lives in my hometown and our newspaper just ran a feature story about her. This poem is so sweet and yet so sad. May God bless you, Mrs. Long.