So How's Your Wonderful Life Going?

"I pray that God, the source of hope, will fill you completely with joy and peace because you trust in him. Then you will overflow with confident hope through the power of the Holy Spirit."   --- Romans 15:13

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The older I become (which happens speedily lately), the more I realize it's my responsibility to create a wonderful life. That is, if I want one.

And I do.

For me, it doesn't work to wait for anyone to give me a wonderful life. Oh, sometimes that happens, but it's occasional. No, usually it's up to me to create a life I especially love, me and the Holy Spirit who's the most creative person, ever.

Seriously.

So lately--to make up for 8 months wilting on the red couch--He and I have celebrated health and summer and books and gardening, cleaning house and mornings reading with my feet up on the sunny front porch.

And bookshelves in need of reorganizing and Pinterest and imaginative folks on Youtube. Being able to do laundry and climb stairs, flowers in pots and newly-poured sidewalk. Stocking-up on winter groceries, bottles and jars of food on glass shelves, groceries arriving at the door, snacks and drinks on the porch for delivery people and weekend meals carried right to our red door.

And Autumn's birth on Tuesday!

Sending gift cards or trinkets or books as surprises and praying for friends recovering from illness or discouragement or shock of losing loved ones. And still having this blog after 22 years when some have--whoosh!--lost theirs in a dreadful moment. **

Mine (and probably yours) is a simple life, but oh, the long, long list of what is ours to celebrate, that is, if we always watch for the good.

What remains is for us to keep our steady balance when this world would shake us to the ground in a sad, worried heap.

And we need not go anywhere but to that straight road at whose end is a Heaven waiting with the most wonderful life of all.

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Well, it was a hot summer (big surprise, right?). My leggings were too warm, so I bought these, below, and love them and do not wear them to bed as designed, but rather, all around the house, porch and yard for all to see. heh.

They're part of my creative, repurposing projects and they look nice given the fact of all the weight I've lost due to intermittent fasting, cancer and hyperthyroid issues. Alas.  シ

Oh, and on cooler days they also look nice with leggings or capris underneath. Highly recommended.

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** Oh dear! Kim's Daisy Cottage blog is gone. All those gloriously colorful posts showing her creative genius using primary reds, yellows and greens with a 70's flair. And the posts of the tours she photographed of her friends' homes, vanished as well.

Typepad is no more, that's why. Darn.

With wild eyes (well ...) I contacted Kim at Instagram, hoping with all my heart she'd downloaded those hundreds of posts elsewhere, but no, she hadn't she sadly told me. I felt so bad for her.

But at least we have her Instagram photos from these past few years as well as some of her older photos online here and there. I was able to gather some into a Pinterest folder here. (You're following me there, right?)

Life goes on, yes. But the place in mine where Kim's blog lived will always remain an empty, much-missed spot, indeed. Though yes, I'm grateful for the years her blog remained online whenever I felt like visiting her special, colorful world.

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Oh. My. Goodness. This guy's home library! Give me one like that and probably I'd never come up from the basement for air.  ツ Unbelievable, .

truly. (And like one guy wrote, "The way my jaw dropped at 4:28." Yes, mine, too.)

A tiny house filled with beautiful antiques and paintings. Wow.

Have you ever watched Wise Living After 50? Her money-saving kitchen ideas are awesome, but I really love her vintage-style drawings. Fun and nostalgic!

If you prefer old-fashioned, soft-color decorating.

A Little Library That Time Forgot

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" ... recognize the fact that Life is a circle around you, tiny when you're a child, wider and wider ... as you grow older, and narrowing again when you're frankly old. You can keep it from shrinking for a long time, perhaps, but there comes a day when it's better to look on it as a small but enchanted circle and make it as pleasant a spot as you can."

-- from Bubbly on Your Budget by Marjorie Hillis

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September around here, so far, has acted very Septemberly. Oooo... love these cooler temps, school busses, musky scents and the occasional floating leaf.

Keep moving forward, one creative step at a time. You can do this!

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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

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, homemade 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 decapitated sunflower.

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 you'd 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, autumn, movies, decorating, quotes, tv series, etc. Go here.

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We have all new sidewalk! 

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. 

 *** 

 "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