snippets of april goodness

April has been a super busy month. Some not-so-good stuff, but I'm focusing on the good. We had a week of 80+ degree days (and in true Illinois weather fashion, we then crashed 50 degrees and had snow) which pushed everything into hyperspeed bloom. As I was driving the other day, I noticed the street lined with the brilliant green, newly emerged leaves on the trees and all the dogwoods and red bud trees in blossom. I said out loud, "Everything is so beautiful." Coming out of our overwhelmingly long, gray, dark winters into the brilliance of spring is akin to Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz stepping out of her farmhouse into the colorful world outdoors. 

(Flowering dogwood)

(Emerging peonies)

(Unfurling ferns)

(Crimson King Maple)

(Magnolia)

(My friend's daffodils...I think they're Sir Winston Churchill daffodils)

Some other good snippets of April ~

The beautiful spring weather called for dining al fresco once again...

and taking walks in the sunshine along the riverwalk.

Went to my first outdoor farmer's market of the season. I got farm fresh eggs, grass-fed burgers, artisan cheeses and microgreens. I petted dogs and a cat in a cat carrier backpack. Everyone was smiling and friendly and talking to each other. I think the nice weather not only makes people in a general better mood, but the freedom of being "back to normal" after the pandemic makes us more appreciative of life's everyday pleasures.

Walking a labyrinth with one of my best friends was good for our souls.

In my March 24th post, I mentioned going to a women's circle on a horse farm. I went again this month! I swear this farm has magical properties. Even driving down the long, winding gravel road to get to the farm is a surreal experience. The first part of the road is lined with dimly uplit trees, then dense pine trees. You come to a clearing and voila...there are the barns, the beautiful house on a hill, a little log cabin with rocking chairs on a porch, horse pastures, a huge pond, swings hanging from trees...and beautiful land as far as the eye can see. 

I am still taking care of the feral and stray cats that come to my house just about every night, by feeding them and keeping a bowl of fresh water on the porch. Blanco is the feral. Photo was taken out my front door, through the glass. There's no way I could get this close to him in person.

Smokey is the stray. He's so sweet, rolling all over the porch as I talk to him. I've been petting him but I'm going to have to stop. He has open, raw wounds behind his ears from excessive scratching which means he has severe ear mites and they're highly contagious to other cats. As a stray, he probably has fleas, too. I can't take a risk of bringing anything into the house that Clementine could catch. I've been in contact with local cat rescues about Smokey. Only one said they could take him, but they don't have any room right now.

Clementine is still amazingly hanging in there with being in stage 4 kidney failure. She's a skinny little thing, only weighing 7 lbs, and looks even more pitiful with fur loss on her belly, legs, some on her sides and halfway down her tail from obsessive biting and chewing. Over the past years, we've been to two different vet dermatologists and between them and her regular vet, we've tried everything from natural remedies to every prescription medication possible. We've changed her diet, too. Nothing ever helped, at least not in the long term. Her regular vet said it's probably anxiety and since she can't be on any anti-anxiety medication because of her kidneys, we just let her be. Our sweet kitty still has a healthy appetite, is active, uses her cat box, and sleeps snuggled up next to me every night. When she was diagnosed with kidney disease 4-1/2 years ago, the vet said she probably only live another 1-1/2 years. She's a fighter! In this photo, she's waving her paw to get Brian to pet her. She either does that or taps you on the arm. So cute. She loves a lot of attention.

Have a beautiful weekend!

weekend clicks

  1.  Highly anticipated April 2023 book releases

  2.  A Collection of 1698 blogs about every topic

  3.  99 reflection questions to ask yourself for personal growth

  4.  Meditation to ease anxiety & boost your immunity

  5.  Loving this Mexican fire opal ring

  6.  This darling London flat captures the essence of an English cottage

  7.  How to edge flower beds like a pro

  8.  Ina's potato-fennel gratin would be perfect for Easter

  9.  An easy way to remove labels from jars

10.  7 ideas to show off your book collection in a dreamy way

Hope your weekend has been filled with play and rest!
Happy April. 🎕

introverting

Hellllooo! It's been way too long. How can it be the end of March already? Though I'm glad it is. Because that means it's officially spring. At least that's what the calendar says. There's only a few signs of it here: chives, daffodils and sedum poking out of the ground; fat little robins hopping around and sandhill cranes flying overhead. The only thing blooming right now is snowdrops. It's been cold and wet this month and tomorrow we're supposed to get 5-8" of slushy, heavy snow. It seems like nice weather will never get here. 

I am an introvert through and through, but March has found me being quite social and trying some new things. I'm good with getting together with my friends one-on-one and I enjoy my yoga class...yoga being a solo activity but still feel you're part of community. But anything more than that as far as a group activity, and I'm quite uncomfortable. I went to a meditation class last week where there were 15 of us sitting around in a circle. And we had to speak in front of this circle three times. It was awful for me. I kind of knew some of the people there from previous alternative healing classes, but afterwards, most of them were standing around talking in little groups and there I was, gathering up my things to leave, trying to sneak out without having to say goodbye to everyone in the room. Ugh, introvert awkwardness problems! 

 When I met my friend, Kari for coffee last month, we talked about going to a women's group at a beautiful horse farm "out in the country". I first went to this women's group about six years ago. It was one of those things where I would think about it from time to time, but never ended up going again. When Kari said she'd go with me, I was all in! Bonus: I got to meet Kari's mom, too. This group I enjoyed because it was quiet and personal and I wasn't pressured to speak. However, it was quite intense and went late. I can't just go to bed when I get home from these types of outings. It takes me several hours to decompress.

Man, how I love horses. The smell of leather and horse sweat, the immenseness of their presence, their amazing intuition. I had a horse when I was a teenager and we lived in Kentucky for a few years. Her name was Judy and she looked similar to this guy, Jack.

I finally got to meet Kris from Junk Chic Cottage in person! We've followed each other's blogs and personally emailed back and forth for years. We met halfway (we live 75 miles from each other) at a beautiful French creperie for lunch. Did we remember to take any photos? No, of course not. We were too busy talking and getting to know each other. Kris is an absolute sweetheart and gifted me with this lovely bag of spring goodies.

For the coming week, I'm going to concentrate on going back to this.

(Gift from one of my besties who knows me too well.)

How about you, are you an introvert or an extrovert?

💖

weekend clicks

(Woodstock Opera House, Woodstock IL)

 1.  This beautiful poem by Philip Larkin will remind you of spring

 2.  30 prompts for gratitude journaling

 3. The 5 minute kitchen workout

 4. What a cool boho home!

 5. Meditation to ease anxiety & boost immunity

 6. What movie to watch this weekend?

 7. These healthy chocolate chip muffins are perfect for weekend baking

 8. Listen to the best of soul,jazz & blues

 9. Did I love well?

10. This book just came out about Highly Sensitive Persons

HAVE A BEAUTIFUL WEEKEND!

hearts and love

I know I'm late in posting this for Valentine's Day because it's now evening, but I suppose it's never too late to send a little love to my blogging friends. 💓

I've always liked this holiday because it's non-commital. Brian and I exchange cards, but that's it. We don't buy each other gifts for Valentine's Day or go out to eat. Fill my car up with gas when it needs it? Make my tea in the morning? Now that's love. Though we do all have our own love language and maybe one of mine is gifts of service. (It's been so long since I've taken that test, that I can't remember.) I do like presents and going out to eat, but not on "Hallmark" holidays.

(Hearts made by various friends; photo by my friend, Hilary Packard.)

Brian doesn't get home from work until later this evening anyway, and he will be exhausted from his 12-hour shift. We'll have a little quiet time together before he crashes. 

A couple of other tidbits:

I treated myself to a lovely package of ephemera from Creative Yellow Pen. (You have to love yourself, too...and if one of those ways is buying yourself a present, then go for it.)

What a great haul! If you're at all into art or junk journaling, I highly recommend this etsy seller. She has sales, so watch for them.

To go along with the heart and love theme, this book. I'm an avid reader and admittedly, a picky one when it comes to fiction. Once in awhile I read a book that leaves me saying at the end, "Now THAT was good writing." This was one of those books. Beautiful prose, not a word wasted, intriguing plot, every character well developed. I never thought I'd like a dystopian novel, but this was so close to reality, it was frightening.

I'll leave you with this poem, from an account on Instagram.

something for everyone at the antique mall

We have an antique mall less than two miles from our house, but haven't been there in about four years. The place is huge ~ three buildings filled with antiques. You need at least a few hours to wander through the buildings. A snowy day was the perfect time for a visit. Though it turned out that the mall closed early due to the snowstorm, so our visit was cut short.

Wandering around the mall, I noticed more mid-century modern items. This style must be "in" again, which is fine with me ~ I happen to like it, as well as antiques. I think you can successfully mix the two styles, as long as it's not overdone.

I happen to love these groovy lamps, though I don't have anywhere to put them. Besides, I have a white slipcovered cottage-style sofa in my small living room, so these lamps would definitely not fit into my decor. I'm picturing my childhood best friend's basement family room from the 70's...there was red shag carpeting and a black vinyl sofa. These lamps would've been perfect there!

There was a booth filled with vintage clothing...

and pretty glassware and tchotchkes filling a window. So many things to browse!

Another booth was filled with feminine, romantic decor.

For the man cave, an assortment of neon beer signs.

Another part of the mall had tons of collector childhood items...toys, figurines, Matchbox cars and records from the 50's - 80's. It's fun looking at all these things that bring back memories from childhood. I still have my plastic dollhouse furniture from the early 70's and I saw a metal dollhouse that was practically identical to the one I used to have that housed the plastic furniture. It was only $10! But what would I do with it and where would I put it? If I had a grandchild, I would've snatched it up for her/him to play with here. 

Love these milk glass plates. Each one had a different design.

This electric coffee pot caught my eye, too. It had a large chip at the spout though.

I was tempted to buy this jar, but the price was too high.

I came home with a couple of items not pictured. One was a birthday gift for a friend and the other a Pyrex bowl. I'll show you the bowl in my next post.

In the meantime, I'm dreaming of warm weather...it was -4 here today with the wind chill factor and will be -20 tomorrow morning. 

Have you done any vintage or antique shopping lately?

new year's day and new china hutch

Hello, friends and happy 2023!

As Brian and I do every New Year's Day, we took a hike in the nearby State Park. This year was the first time since we could remember, that there hasn't been snow on the ground. It was cold - 31 degrees F - but no breeze. The clean, crisp air actually felt refreshing instead of brutally cold like it had in previous years.

Since the park is closed on New Year's day, we only passed a couple of people near the walk-in entrance. Otherwise, it was like we had the 2200 acres to ourselves.

We ended up hiking 2-1/2 miles. I learned the hard way that I need another layer of clothing underneath my jeans. It took a long time for my thighs to thaw out!

Those of you who have been here awhile know that my large kitchen wall has looked pretty much like this for several years. We bought the skinny hutch when we were newlyweds from a furniture store in Long Grove, IL. It was perfect for our small townhouse.  We paid $400 for it - a lot of money back then. Now I'll be lucky to get $50 for it. When we moved into this house 32+ years ago, the hutch came with us and first was in the living room, then in the kitchen. It was more of a sentimental piece, but it served its purpose. I also liked the vintage three-tiered cart beside the hutch. It held my Dutch ovens, mixing bowls, and my coffee mug tree. However, the past few years I'd been wanting a larger piece of furniture for this wall to replace the cart and the skinny hutch. I wasn't sure exactly "what", but I had a hunch that I'd know the piece I was looking for when I saw it.

And...here it is! Right after Christmas, I was browsing FB Marketplace and saw this hutch. The woman had already lowered the price by $50. I messaged her and asked if she'd be will to go down another $50. She said yes, if I picked it up that day! Our kind next-door neighbor helped us move the skinny hutch down into our basement (now I need to try and sell it) and this new one into our kitchen.

The vintage tiered cart went into the basement for now too (don't know if I'm going to keep it to use somewhere else or sell it), so I replaced that with a little painted table and ZZ plant. The wall above the plant remained bare, since I didn't have anything in my basement decor stash that would fit in that space. I was running errands a few days ago and first was going to stop in Hobby Lobby to check out what they had, but then decided to try Goodwill first. I haven't been in a Goodwill in probably two years. I tend to stay out of resale shops for the most part now, since I rarely need anything. I've been more focused on donating to resale shops instead of buying from them. Anyhoo, I found this Paris art print and took the chance of it being the right size and looking good in this space. 

Love the detail on the front of the glass. And whoever painted this cabinet did a great job. The woman I bought the cabinet from said this piece was in her house when she moved in.

There's enough room inside to hold all my cookbooks, Dutch ovens, bowls, recipe boxes (they hold old hand-written family recipes), decor items and teas.

The drawer underneath the cabinet holds my dishtowels, pot holders, and extra kitchen decor items. I want to find some pretty paper to line the drawer and organize it a bit better.

Hope the start to the new year is going well for you. Thanks for reading and for your kind comments.
💖