For Gardeners Only (But Kinda For Anyone, Also)

" ... their life shall be like a watered garden, and they shall languish no more."   --- Jeremiah 31:12

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So this past Springtime, like most, I planted my garden seeds late. 

Like, mid-June. Really! Always I clean-up my yard's leaves and twigs first, prepare soil (takes a month+), then, this year, planted cherry tomatoes, jalapenos, even, and marigolds, dwarf zinnias, sunflowers, purple coneflowers and blue sage. 

Also lettuce, but everyone knows that grows fast.

Youtube told me planting late was ok and you know? It was. I'm pretending it's Autumn already and oh, how pretty the at-peak oranges, reds and pinks of marigolds, tomatoes and zinnias in the Fall.

I've not told you in ages that my gardens are container ones. I plant seeds in gallon pots then either transplant them into larger containers or let them remain on our porch. Or carry them out to my 'farm garden bed' out back.

The heftier pots are sunk into the ground halfway after replacing last year's soil with 2/3 new soil, compost, and bits of fertilizer crystals. In the ground like that they, (ideally, anyway), don't dry out as quickly.

Now? Everything looks lovely these cooler days. I sit in our porch's sunshine beside lots of greenery, reading, and feel like I've traveled to an exotic place.

I did make one mistake (at least), though. In one of those sunken pots too near the porch, I planted 3 sunflowers. An annoying squirrel, over 3 days, reached over and snipped each pretty flowered head, ate a few seeds. Then scurried away with each one.

Note to self: next year plant the sunflowers farther out in an unreachable area.

With plants in containers? Anyone can have a garden. Anyone. Even an older lady who went through chemo and radiation, slowly recovered, then came out the other side feeling healthy and bubbling-over with gratitude.

(Not my porch. Not my plants. heh.)

I accidentally ordered two packages of one-gallon pots from Amazon. Yikes! Each pack contains 50 pots so if I know you in Real Life and would like some of these, let me know. I'll happily give you some if you're willing to pick them up.

And usually I order seeds from Ebay, but a couple weeks ago I bought a set of assorted seed envelopes, 50, for a good price at Walmart. Non-GMO. And of course, I'm also saving seeds from what I planted this year.

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Over at Pinterest, I had to start over. Long story. But whatever, I've had a pleasant time creating lots of new boards filled with favorite things.

Are you a member over there? I'd love to have you sign-up with me! There's something for everyone. Clothes, books, movies, decorating, quotes, etc. Go here.

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We have all new sidewalk! We were able to squeeze in one more big project this year, one 15 years in the making. We'd placed ourselves on the city's need-new-sidewalk list 14 years ago, but tired of waiting with those nearly-all-broken-and-cracked-disgusting concrete pieces. So we hired a crew and paid for it, ourselves.

Besides, it had always been a possible danger, one where we could get sued if someone tripped, even though, technically, the city owns the sidewalks.

Anyway, it's beautiful. They'll come to remove the forms today, then we'll need to have our lawn guys fill in the side parts with new dirt and grass seed.

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Oh my. Many of you will love this woman and her home and garden.

Gardening After 60

I've been binge-watching this young woman's videos and this is my favorite one so far.

I Built a Tiny Library on my Stairs

Go little Wednesday, go!   ツ

And as I wrote at Facebook:

What will they think of next? The 'Mornings With Granny' woman showed us laundry detergent sheets she found at Amazon. I'd never heard of those! I think she bought 80 for $5. Eighty loads of laundry for just $5 or if she tears them in half (she said) that's 160 loads for $5. Wow!

So I rushed over to Amazon and found 160 unscented laundry sheets for $9.99. They arrived today and get this: often I do just one load of laundry per week (hey, it's just 2 of us) so that's, like, only $10 for 3 years of laundry! If I considered cutting them in half, it would be even better, but these seem smaller than Granny's so I'll probably leave them alone. (Oh, and one reviewer said to place the clothes on top of the sheets so they don't just cling to the side of the wash barrel.)

Anyway, I've not used any yet, but they should work fine. It's not like Tom and I are ditch diggers with filthy, ground-in-dirt clothing. Haha!

Just had to share this money-saving idea with you all. They had tons of varieties if you wanted to use something a bit more organic, etc.

Go here to visit with Granny.

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Please remember: My posts are always about more than they appear to be. 

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 "For if you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you, but if you do not forgive others their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses." ... Matthew 6:14,15

Where She Stopped Reading(!) And Other Sad Stories.

An avid reader since 14-years-old, I pretty much stopped reading books during my cancer treatments. 

Seriously, I barely recognized myself those days because I was tired. Weak. I didn't care about keeping a clean house, couldn't climb down the stairs to do laundry, even seldom brushed my hair and as I said, I stopped reading books.

A little frightening all that, especially when satan (you feel) is whispering, "This is the new you. You'll never return to your past energetic, glad self."

So I had to keep praying--and--asking friends at Facebook for prayer. 'My village's' encouragement felt huge! Really, those of you who prayed for me, my gratitude will never cease.

And you know how sometimes our friends do something we don't understand? Back around 2010, a dear friend (of decades) from CA died and only 2 weeks before did she email me that she'd been terribly sick for months. 

Oh my. 

I would've prayed for her during all that time and sent her encouraging emails, cards, letters. But when her relative told us at Facebook that she'd passed away, I began to cry. It was extra hurtful because she'd kept her sickness a secret from us.

I turned to Tom with teary eyes and said, "If I ever get sick (Heaven forbid), I'm telling everyone! I'd want everybody praying for me."

Well, I kept that promise during my cancer scare and you know? Those prayers and encouragement meant everything to me. Barely able to walk, they helped me drag myself to the car on dark, snowy mornings to travel to treatments I didn't want to take. They calmed me while riding over that insane, icy Buffalo Thruway. 

And they aided me in defeating, ignoring, those "you'll never feel normal again' lies.

Of course, you are free to handle sickness however you wish. I realize that.

But I wanted to share my story, this latest one and my friend's earlier one, to show you both sides. To help you decide now how (again, Heaven forbid) you'll handle what just may be the hardest time of your life.

Often it's best to make a decision with a clear mind well before that mind goes all foggy-dark later.

Glenn Beck gave a perfect (imo) tribute to Dolly Parton here.

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The (Few!) Books I've Read (or Am Still Reading) this year:

Gladwynn Grant Gets Her Footing by Lisa R. Howeler

Mystery of the Red Carnations by Mary C. Jane

Natural Barn Killer by Amanda Flower

Almost Amish by Nancy Sleeth

Chicken Every Sunday by Rosemary Taylor (probably for the 20th time. Total comfort book.)

More Junior Authors edited by Muriel Fuller (my edition is earlier. These books couldn't be removed from libraries, so I'd sit there for hours reading about my favorite authors, but now I have 2 editions of my own.)

Movies We've Watched Lately:

Spiderman No Way Home (2nd watch)

Breadwinner (Hilarious, over-the-top and we loved it)

I Can Only Imagine 2 

Unexpected Family (give it a few minutes. IMO, Jackie Chan's finest performance.)

The Shift (2nd watch)

Greenland 2

Lovely Youtube Videos:

Full Recipe Box Found (what a treat!)

Old Furniture, New Cottage Charm

Cozy Pink Cottage Dollhouse (I fast-forwarded to the darling end product)

10 Crockpot Recipes for Seniors

The Magic of Bookshops is Still Alive

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And what I've been doing lately? I cleared 2 additional shelves from the glass-fronted hutch in our home office and added more jars and bottles of food items. How lovely to have all those in one place rather than here and there on 2 floors of the house!  (Photos coming. Someday. I think.)  ツ

And I've been stocking-up, keeping lists galore, etc. How good to be ready for winter (or whatever comes) again!

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And as I shared at Facebook:

Yay! In fact, today I knew they were close when I found myself placing my cool hands around the nice, warm crockpot!

In case you needed some (ok, early) autumnal decor inspiration .... Oh my!

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God created us to need each other. To not be all me-against-the-world loners.

Please remember: My posts are always about more than they appear to be. *** "For if you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you, but if you do not forgive others their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses." ... Matthew 6:14,15

A Rare This and That Post

1.) Forgot to mention last time that July 25th marked my 22nd blogiversary. Can you believe that? Even I can't, but there you go.  シ And a special thanks to those of you who've hung in there with me for many of those years. What an encouragement you are!

2.) So after 47 years I'd grown weary of cooking. Hey, go figuring just two meals per day, even, and the number comes out to 34,310(!)

But then being all gluten intolerant now, I realized if I want tasty foods (and not go into debt paying someone else to cook them like with a meal delivery subscription), then I'd better change my attitude.

So I did what I've often told you to: Instead of praying the verse, "Restore unto me the joy of my salvation," I tweaked it to (in this case), "Restore unto me the joy of cooking."

Truly, it works every time. I'm back to enjoying cooking and even watching others create meals at Youtube. Just substitute a few ingredients and voila! Tasty gluten-free meals for cheap.

Whew.

3.) Back in 2019 when God (I felt) nudged me to declutter 10 items per week, I also sensed He wanted me to release 300 of my books. Three-hundred?! Yes.

Well, initially I said, "That's impossible!" (Hey, I love books and my 35 year+ collection of them.) But you know? I wanted to obey God, for He knows best.

So I approached this slowly, lugged just a few books at a time down to the Salvation Army drop-off and Little Free Library, kept track of how many I released and by now? I've given away 564 books. Wow.

(Probably 30 are ones Tom let go of, but still, 534 is something big. For me, anyway.)

Truly, just doing small things each day/week/month always adds up over Time. What matters is starting and continuing and staying inspired to do the right thing.

4.) Can you believe that, at the end of August, Tom and I will have lived at Hobbit Cottage for 15 years? (I hope my longtime readers didn't faint at that.)  シ

Another one of those "I can barely believe it" things. For many reasons our living here has been good for us, one of which is that these 860 square feet keep us reigned-in from collecting too much junk stuff.

I try to remind myself that that's a good thing.

5.) Since 2024 I've meant to tell you that I bought some just-like-I-imagined garden plant labels/signs. These 2 years later I still love using them in my gardens:

I found them at Amazon here.

6.) Speaking of shopping online, I love to listen to vintage mall/supermarket music when I do so. Brings old-fashioned-ness to a modern-day activity.

Here are a couple favorite videos to shop by:

Mall Memories of the 60's and 70's

Retro Supermarket Shopping Music

There are tons to choose from on Youtube.

7.) Oh, and there are many retro crockpot meal videos, also, but this one was special, for he includes the notes his grandmother penned beside each recipe. I hope you'll check this one out for yourself, especially if you need cooking inspiration like I have:

Grandma's Lost Cookbook

8.)  Before moving back upstairs (see my last post) I'd envisioned making my row of bookshelves feel more town-library-ish, especially since I no longer visit our local library due to all the books I either buy online-- physical ones or Kindle--(only occasionally, ok? heh) or read online free at Open Library, who carries the books my city library discarded decades ago.

Anyway! What finally got me to attempt that bookshelf challenge is when I watched Darling Desi create a Blockbuster Video store area in her bedroom. What a cute idea! 

I que'd (sp) it up to that specific part here. (Well, I'm crossing my fingers that it worked.)

That was the inspiration I needed! I tweaked my bookshelves up here a bit and I'm happy with them. To me they've got more of a you've-traveled-to-the-city-library feeling.

(I would show you a photo, but my camera still isn't connected to this newish laptop. Besides, I think you'd need my own imagination to see what I see now. heh.) 

But whatever, it's been fun making a change.

9.)  

He is! Even now. Even any day inside our hearts if we invite Him to do so.

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A couple bonus videos for you:

I'd never seen this side of the Clutterbug gal! A delightful video, indeed.

And this must be the most beautiful small yard garden that I've ever seen online. No, really. (Wait for it.... wait till her friend takes you to the backyard.)  ツ

Oh! And nearly forgot to mention this:

The Chosen Run Wild With Bear Grylls. What a terrific idea!

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Please remember: My posts are always about more than they appear to be. 

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 "For if you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you, but if you do not forgive others their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses." ... Matthew 6:14,15