Sweet Violets

So many of you have commented on the new wallpaper I put up last week.  It makes me smile.

I've always loved violets for as long as I can remember.  I think I first read of them in one of Louisa May Alcott's books.  Was it in Little Women or An Old Fashioned Girl?  I'll lay odds it was the latter book, as I loved it long before I grew to appreciate the virtues of Little Women.

The Week Ahead: Spring Songs

The birds are chirping, the peepers continue to peep and soon the frogs will be booming and the crickets humming.  Typically, this week marks the last frost of our year.  According to the weather app on my phone, our frosty mornings are over.    I won't be rushing right outdoors to plant (pollen is too high for that anyway) because the soil must begin to warm, but it's definitely the time to start thinking of our summer pots and any other flowers I'd care to plant.

The Week Behind: A Prudential Home

Saturday:  Sent John off to work in the usual manner.  He was surely not happy about this constant cycle of work, come home to lethargy, cram in everything into 14 waking hours and then going back to work...and who can blame him.  He must feel a great deal as though he's got on the hamster wheel and can't get off.

A Few of My Most Favorite Purchases - January/February

I thought I'd share another of my posts for favorite purchases. I honestly thought I'd bought a great deal more over the last two months but my credit card history and my Amazon orders list tell me differently.  Here are the few items I think are worth mentioning for the past two months:

Marcelle Micellar Water

Coffee Chat: In Between

Hello dears.  Come in and let us have a chat.  Have some coffee.  It's certainly a little brisk outdoors and coffee would be good.  Not cold as my more northern neighbors judge it,  but our weather is cold for us, despite the sunshine.  It's that brisk wind that is the undoing of the sun's warmth.

But just look out the window at how high the weeds have grown and how they are dancing in that wind!   John did say on Monday that it was getting time to mow.  I just hate to even think on it because of his time at home on his two days off, that means that 1/4 of his day off will be spent mowing if it continues to rain regularly through the coming warm months.  Last year he had to cut lawn twice a week.  One neighbor was mowing this morning when I stepped out to feed the dogs and I can hear a mower humming somewhere near even now.  Yes, it's the season for it in our area.

The Week Ahead: Prudence

 

“As we have been continuously counseled for more than 60 years, let us have some food set aside that would sustain us for a time in case of need. But let us not panic nor go to extremes. Let us be prudent in every respect.”
Gordon B. Hinckley

I found the above quote on Frugal Measures blog for last week.  It's the last part of the little blurb that really hit me had "But let us not panic nor go to extremes.  Let us be prudent in every respect."  There are times when I worry about what I'm not doing with my pantry/freezer storage, and there are times when I feel very much that I am okay where I am, that much more would feel like hoarding, something which I very much do not want to do.  I want to be able to reasonably use my food storage to carry us over tight spots and rough patches, or to carry a family member over such spots, but I confess that in watching those extreme couponing shows I shy away hard at the number of items people with small families stockpile.

The Week Behind: Marching On

Saturday:  A very easy day at home.  It was cooler than it was on Friday and we sort of shivered a bit, but we did not turn the heat a bit higher.  It wasn't deeply cold indoors (nor out) and we found a jacket or throw over our legs soon warmed us nicely.  I am too well aware of that extra on the electric bill to want to turn up heat and besides, just yesterday the AC ran off and on from morning to evening and likely will run at some point next week as well.  This is the in-between season for us.