Share the Joy Thursday–Going Green…

Green is my favorite color !

All of these photos are of the green plants I have in my house.

During the winter, I find them especially wonderful.

I love that my windows have some green in them, so I can look past them out to the white and/or grey of the winter starkness. Together, we soak up whatever light we can until the days get longer and the sunlight gets stronger

Today is St. Patrick’s Day, and while I do not have a drop of Irish blood in me that I know of,

I love the fact that it is also a day to celebrate my very favorite color !

The fact that Spring arrives officially in three days (on my sweet Nephew Thomas’ birthday!), is also a thrill !

The promises of so much more glorious green to come !

I hope there is a lot of joyful green in your world today, Beautiful Ones.

Happy St. Patty’s Day !

(For more joy sharing, go and visit our hostess Meri at Meri's Musings)

A Mixed Bag Post - Soul Journal Potpourri, Porch Flowers and some beautiful things...

So I really wanted to post yesterday but life had other sweet plans for me ... more later in the beautiful things portion...

I did a photo shoot on the back porch again - check out this gorgeous hibiscus ! I love the orange ! The blossom is about the size of my hand ! :

And this beauty is a cosmos I grew from seeds. The plants are about 3 feet high and finally flowering. Cosmos remind me of my dad. He always planted them at our cottage up north. I love their delicate strength.

The artist in me is still working at low speed. I have a few projects I really need to get done ! My deadline is next Thursday, just before David and I head to Montreal for Andrea and James' wedding, Baby Cupcake's christening and then our week at the cottage. I want to have it all done but seem to still have a hard time focusing on those have-to's !

Finding time for the Soul Journaling though... Here are page 3 and 4 of the Collage Potpourri. Some of the things Sarah (at Caspiana) suggested we try on these pages were painting with a plastic fork, adding numbers in a variety of ways, doing a monoprint with a paint blob, adding significant words and doing some sewing on the page. Sewing isn't really my thing but I added some stitching in red embroidery floss to page 3 and I sewed on a tassel I made from metallc embroidery floss on page 4.

Here is a "sweet spot" shot of page 3. I love all the numbers popping through and I love how the fork painting at the bottom looks like a little red fence. I think this sweet spot should be called "Don't fence me in !"

"Don't fence me in!"

Here is the sweet spot on page 4. I think you can see it pretty well in this shot but what I love best about this page is the depth of the colors in the background. That came from the various color washes and dry brushing but also the glorious metallic color from the copper Lumiere Acrylic paint ! This sweet spot is called "Love : Long May She Reign".

"Love - Long May She Reign"

As you can tell, I am really into that creative process that this Soul Journal project has inspired. I think I will bring a few minimal art supplies with me to the cottage and continue the pot pourri thing up there ! A whole week just to play ! No have-to's ! Yippee !

To end off, here are my three beautiful things for the end of this week :

#1 My wonderful friend Sonia took me for my first every pedicure yesterday ! I know ,43 and a pedicure virgin !!! But I am a virgin no more, let me tell ya ! The woman who did my foot massage was incredible ! I almost fell asleep ! And my icky summer "Hobbit" feet are so very pretty now ! Ready for the high heeled sandals for the wedding next week ! A thousand thank you's Sonia, for that wonderful sweet treat ! You rock, girlfriend !!!

#2 My incredibly talented friend Lois has been working so hard on my beautiful dress for the wedding next week. It is turning out so well and I am excited that I will feel pretty and special in my dress. A thousand thank-you's to you too, Lo ! You are amazingly generous and I so, so appreciate it !

#3 Girlfriends, girlfriends, girlfriends !!! Girlfriends are a beautiful thing everyday ! I am so very, very grateful for them on the good days and on the bad. I also know that I am a good girlfriend back, when one of the glorious women I know needs me. Thank God for girlfriends and all the joy, support, laughter, tears and love they bring ! Now that's a beautiful thing, baby !

Happy August, have a great weekend and may your world be full of beauty (and girlfriends !) today !

Hating Thy Neighbor's Mess

So the hubby and I live in a pretty yellow house on Orange Street. Colorful, eh ? It is a really nice street. We and our neighbours really try to keep things nice. You know, the usual lawn mowing, flower planting, keeping our yards tidy and keeping our house value up by making improvements were needed.

Unfortunately, our back yard abuts a not so nice street that has quite a few rental properties on it. Why is it that some renters are so much less caring about how their homes look than home owners ? Don't they want to live in a nice environment , even if they don't own it ? Why is it that some renters are just plain slobs !!!!!???

This is the view from my big back deck :

What a mess ! It looks like the whole contents of a garage is dumped in the yard! It has been like this (and sometime worse!) for at least two years. The tree between us is growing which helps a little but this is the view we have whenever we use our deck. These neighbours hang out in their yard a lot, and they have a clear view onto our deck which makes me feel like I am being watched whenever I sit out there. They are also very noisy, use foul language incessantly (even in front of their kids)..... I could go on and on but that's too much rant as it is (not to mention the incriminating photo !). The noise and stuff is really hard to do anything about - they are just living their noisy lives and they do usually stop the noise by 11:00pm in the summer.... But the view ! That was something I was determined to do something about this year so I could use my own deck with pleasure and in privacy!

You can't build a twelve foot fence - maybe you can but that wasn't in the budget or the vision! The hubby and I decided on a privacy curtain - something that wasn't too permanent, didn't cost too much and would look okay from our side as well as theirs (see, we really are nice neighbours to have !) We used metal pipes screwed into flanges, a cable with a turnbuckle, some pretty outdoor table cloths cut to size and some shower curtain hooks to create this :

The next thing is to change the back of the bench to have less space in between the cross beams with means adding 2 more 1"X6"X12' to the span. That part of the project will be done tonight ! But I am happy with our handy work so far.

I finished the curtain yesterday and set to work by adding my plants to the deck. Hopefully, frosts are over ! Let the spring really begin ! I have seeded some babies in the house for a few weeks - cosmos and morning glories. I pulled our dahlia pots out of the basement where they slept for the winter. I also brought out the three year old hibiscus that graces my studio window during the winter and her new friend, the one year old mandavilla, that survived the winter indoors as well. I added a couple on pots of annuals as well, just for some color until the other stuff comes in. It still looks a little bare right now but some sun, some water and some time and my fun, PRIVATE summer time oasis will be in full bloom !

Mandavilla, sleeping dahlias, pansies

Daisy-like annuals (?) and cilantro seeds

Baby cosmos with pansies

Hibiscus with annuals