Time for a kitchen update!

My kitchen makes me happy...and cozy with a warm fuzzy 'at home' feeling.

The feel of cool slate beneath my feet...which are usually bare...gives an earthy feel.  The colonial colors, the primitive border, the eclectic blend of vintage/antique furniture and accessories gives the room a warm and cozy feel.  And I love it here so I don't want to change it just tweak what we have while fixing a few things. More of an update.

In this photo you can see the wallpaper border that I chose to pull it all together.  It's been on these walls for about 16 years and I would pick the same one over again.  

The rag rolled walls started out with a coat of sunflower gold followed by a blend of glazes that gives it that pumpkinish color.

                  

This turn of the century Sears and Roebuck cabinet was gifted to us years ago and has had several homes within the rooms of our house.  Once originally painted white, a color which has no place in this room, it is now a blend of barn red over Windsor green, combed over in wavy patterns so the green shows through.

This chalk board was in the basement of my childhood home and I spent many hours playing "school" with my pretend students.  Little did I know that one day I'd be using it to homeschool my own children!  Now that they are grown, it's a great place for messages or reminders, even the occasional artistically inspired chalk drawing or Bible verse.

When we originally painted the house we used one color for the walls and ceiling throughout.  It gave us a good base for any future paint or wall paper and made the move a little quicker since we moved in on Dec 15th and baby #2 came on Jan. 14th.

The kitchen ceiling is still the antique linen that we started with and it's time for a change.  So I'm thinking about pulling the Wedgwood blue from the flowers and birds in the border to give it a homey touch.  

There are patches of antique linen showing on the walls where we decided to rearrange the wall cupboards a while after the rag rolling was done.  We've ignored it for a while now and I'm ready to fix it.  I'm not sure I can duplicate the rag rolled colors or pattern so that it won't be an obvious patch job.  So going back to my wall paper border, the barn red keeps calling to me! 

Stay tuned to see what we end up with!

Quiet Time

There is a still small peace that comes from spending a little quiet time each day.  How do you fill that space of time?  Do you read?  Do devotions or Bible study?  How about yoga or prayer time?  Maybe just getting lost in your favorite tunes...

One of the newest ways, at least for me, is coloring. Yes, I am an adult!  But if you search for coloring books aimed at an adult doodler, you won't have to look far to find hundreds, even thousands, of coloring books with varying themes just for you!

Here's one that I picked up over Christmas for a friend and loved it so much I bought one for myself!

This inspirational book is filled with beautiful black line illustrations just waiting for you to customize it with your own color combinations...your own work of art.

For me, this is great because, although I can make mechanical drawings, my artistic drawing skills offer little more than stick figures and primitive 2-D images.

The designs in Whatever Is Lovely create a wonderful release as you get into the art of blending colors and filling spaces with happiness. 

You can use markers, crayons, colored pencils, or gel pens to make these pages your own!  Here's a nice set of gel pens from Frog Lily.

Why not pick up a copy of Whatever Is Lovely, turn on your favorite music and get lost in a simple, relaxing coloring page?!

Pondering My Meanderings... with much herbal love, Wanderer

Gone From My Sight

It's been nearly a month now...but that seems so hard to believe.  The following thoughts were pondered and roughly recorded as I rested in the room across the tiny hall from my Mom...

The winter snow falls softly but quickly outside the window.  Inside the quiet is almost suffocating, cut only by labored breathing and soft moans of pain.  Modern medicine has very little to offer in these last days...last hours...of a life ravaged by cancer.

As I sit here pondering what lies ahead and all that's transpired under this roof my eyes fill with tears.  
So much hurt.  
A soul can hardly imagine the desperate search for worth that follows a young life full of abuse and drunkenness, poverty and fear.   

And why continue to spread that hurt by building a wall around yourself too high for a little girl to climb?  

And so it goes, from one generation to the next, the sins of the father.

This is the second time I've stood in these rooms and watched and listened and even smelled the last signs of life.  They give you a book...signs of death at the end...the last months...the last weeks... the last days...the last hour...kind of a morbid countdown toward the inevitable end.  

The first time I did this dreary countdown, we learned about the cancer, after a week spent in the hospital Dad came home.  Home to die.  The signs from the death booklet moved quickly.  One week later he was gone from my sight.
  
I thought that week was the hardest week of my life.
  
I was wrong.

This time the battle has been going on for 2 1/2 years.  The pain, the suffering...the beginning of the end.  A very long beginning.  The blood, the tests, the surgery, the long recovery - never to be the same again.  Treatment, more cancer...more treatment...and more cancer...out of control.

Most of the signs in the book are physical and behavioral, measurable.  They are here now, even to the last page and I know it won't be long.  While she's resting in one of the few pain free hours she's had in a while, I ponder my thoughts.  I can't say feelings right now because I am numb.

This week I've literally watched the life blood flow from her shrunken body.  Red and harsh.  Stark against the white bed linens.  I pull the sheets and quilt over the red but the tell tale hose that carries it away snakes out from under the covers.  A hateful reminder of the internal damage done by this greedy, consuming killer.

I used to think that death was ugly.  Now I think that it can be but not always.  This death, approaching steadily, will be the answer to prayers...hers and mine...for peace, freedom from pain, escape from a body, once strong but now a weakened shell...a gateway to what lies ahead.  

She says she is ready to meet her maker...just waiting on His timing.  

Sleep...just for a moment...rest on the edge of consciousness...ready to take the few quick steps to her side if she needs me.  She sleeps too deeply, breathes too hard.  I step across the hall to check on her and squeeze her hand, this time there is no response.  I linger for a moment and then go for a drink of water.  Coming right back I know something is different as soon as I reach the top of the steps...the complete silence hits me hard.  My steps quicken but it feels like I'm walking through water.  When I step into her room, I know.  Her time has come.

She is gone from my sight.


Pondering My Meanderings... with much herbal love, Wanderer