Create, be inspired...

A while back I found this lamp in the trash at the storage place where we keep our stuff.  The prong connector was missing from the cord, and to tell you the truth, it wasn't something I wanted to see round the house.  But I did see some potential in it anyway.

When I got home I removed the entire electrical aspect of the lamp and throw it away, gave it a wash and started painting using some left over paints I had in the garage from previous projects... And here's the result. 

I decided to paint my lamp in two different shades to give it interest and highlight those lovely arms… for the body I used the same paint I used on my favorite chandelier HERE.  Just in case you care to know, I didn’t use the baking method this time to cure the glass.  I think it turned out so pretty!

In spring time when the wildflowers start to bloom, I will remove the top part of my newly invented vase and insert in the drum some of the prettiness of Nature growing out there...

For those of you who ask about my feral cats... they’re doing marvelous.  They come by every day, feed from the food I leave for them, drink from my fountains and I know that at east one of them has made his sleeping quarters on the settee in our front porch… but they’re definitely in a wild state. Trying to domesticate them would be no different than trying to make a squirrel or a raccoon a household companion ;) 

Gosh I love all this free time I have on my hands… time to write, decorate, be creative, be cozy, be warm and just let everyday of my life be a bad hair day!!  Pure Awesomeness to me! ;)  

Till next time...

Au revoir!

LINKING TO:
FEATHERED NEST FRIDAY
HOME AND GARDEN THURSDAY

In the garden

Few things are more extraordinary to me than sleeping in the garden on a summer’s day.  Waking up under the canopy of trees that shrouds my little sanctuary is like being in a fairytale written by God’s fingers.  It’s like finding myself all of a sudden in a meadow of tiny flowers sprinkled with stardust, and fields of Queen Anne's lace dazzling in sunlight.  It is like going back in time just to find the little puffball-pink clover flowers that glittered above the pasture where I grew up.  But this is only January, and the garden has yet to cuddle up some more…    

Our disposition can easily be affected by what we see or what’s going on around us.  Our thoughts and consciousness become absorbed in negativity fairy quickly.  How marvelous and wise, to focus my thoughts into what’s ahead in the season in times like these—a garden brimming in all its wonderful and soul-healing glories.   

Ah yes I believe that southern girls are not saved from the ‘spring fever’ bug… It must be contagious, I suppose.  Or maybe is just that we don’t live south enough for all that year ‘round summer weather I allegedly thought we were going to see here?  Like you Florida gals down there!   Is it nice and warm where you live?  Do you have any flowers blooming yet?

I’m learning patience as I live my little life, but I’d have to admit that thus far I haven’t entirely mastered such graces yet.   So I was out there a few days ago planting my summer bulbs in a 40 degree temperature… delighting in lingering sunshine.  Yes, because although it sounds cold, here the sun shines in some miraculous ways, and after a while it warms up and sunshine does this thing to your body and soul and in no way you want to go inside and miss all that…

I planted all my Elephant Ears bulbs by the pond area and some by the creek at the edge of the garden.  The Oriental lilies are now planted in the shady garden along with all the hostas I have there almost ready to wake up on any given day now…  I can't hardly wait!

I’m also almost done with all the spring cleaning.  Can you believe it!  I’m amazed just at the thought of being able to be outside in January… goodness me!  And to think that planting anything that wasn’t in the form of dreams was not even an option just a year ago!   

 And now… being outside submerged in Nature already!  It truly is unbelievable, and grand to me.

I am a worshiper of the sun in some mystical sense, as you can tell, and I find this sun of the southern hemisphere just glorious in every season.  Well, perhaps not that much in summer time, but comes winter time and all that heat of summer is forgiven in a huge way.

The hydrangeas outside the tall windows of our sunroom are bursting with life.  You can see the fist leaves crowning what it looks like dead wood in the prettiest lively green.  It amazes me—this unexplainable, miraculous force called life.  I’ve been also doing some painting outside… again yes yes!  It seems that painting my little garden’s accessories, like flower pots and mirrors and benches and stools and doing my best to create color  is a true yearning of my heart… so I gladly engage in doing this each year.   

My husband is very good at telling me what he likes and dislikes and pretty much dissents with my taste in garden decorating… ha!  He believes that my garden is looking already like a junk yard with the many things I keep there… He always feels this way around this time of year when winter would uncover my little treasures and let them be seen in full sight.  But what a lovely place this is when again, trees and shrubs and flowers are kings and queens.  Discovering with the eyes all these little treasures secretly tucked along the pathways it truly is a delightful thing… 

 I hope you all have a super beautiful day!

....Oh oh and look what I found this morning!!

 Ciao!

Dreaming day...

The sun is not coming out today—a bad day to have decided to bring my plants outside for a respite of sunshine.  We cleaned the pond a few days ago and got the pump running again.  Sitting here in our peaceful sunroom-dinning room, which is right by the pond outside, it truly is enchanting. 

The sound of water, the countless tweets of birds in the privet; which is the habitat to so many species, the sky so low with murky clouds—all make me want to dream…

...to cuddle up in dreams and be transported to some fantasy world….

 Imagining I’m riding the moon in a fairy bubble...

Be transported to Munchkin-land… 

Or to the Land of Oz where the wicked Witch of the East will be waiting!

Get lost in Minas Tirith, the city that J.R.R. Tolkien described as seemingly "carven by giants out of the bones of the earth."  Fantasy lands and forest of deep mysteries...

Fly around in bird wings through Golden Wood in Lothlorien! The most magical world in the entire Middle-earth in Lord of the Rings!  

Or perhaps runaway to the bottom of the sea and become a mermaid?

But of course, if I could chose a place
I would must definitely will have to pick the magical forest of the “Legend”
where Princess Lily found the Unicorn!  
 Oh yes yes that’s where I want to go!  

I’m thinking that this year I want to engage more in magical thinking… run through enchanted forest, dwell in unimagined worlds; worlds of make believe where dreams and imagination would enrapture me at any given blissful moment of day and transport me to an inexistent future and a forgotten past.

All images taken from Pinterest

 ...but without ever having to leave my dear little white cottage in the woods.  Which actually… it is my favorite place of all places! And it’s real too!  ;)

Where would you like to be transported to, if you could?  Please do share!

“The world is indeed full of peril and in it there are many dark places. But still there is much that is fair. And though in all lands, love is now mingled with grief, it still grows, perhaps, the greater.” - Tolkein

My days...

Do you get this sore and tired when working in the garden?  Could this have something to do with age, that doesn’t forget nor forgives?  Maybe?  Spring cleaning—that’s what it’s called.  

 

Spring cleaning is not a thing of the North alone as one may think.  One is not to be spared off that task here either as I had imagined I’d be.  But what amazing privilege it is to be able to start prettying up the garden this early in the season!  So not like the north.  By May, my little paradise will be already looking gloriously beautiful, and I will have an extended period of joy as the gardening season stretches here.

 

I cleaned a big area and moist spaces by the little creek where I’m planning on planting Elephant Ear bulbs as a border.  I can already see it in my mind—the bold foliage and gigantic heart-shaped leaves… emerald, purple, black, chartreuse and yellow.  Can hardly wait!

 

 

I think I might have been poisoned again.  I was sure that poison ivy dies off in winter time.  Perhaps not.

The other day colossal flocks of blackbirds in a Hitchcock-like numbers flew by our little white cottage.  What were they?  Common grackles, brown-headed cowbirds; perhaps starlings? With an incredible bustle of tweets and wings they took possession of the wooded areas behind our gardens and surrounding trees for an entire day.  

I marveled as I watched these feathered creatures showing off dazzling aeronautics for such common birds.   Gliding the air as they did in a lovely dance; floating down without an apparent movement of their wings.  Such majestic cascade of a drop—like petals being carried down by gentle breezes.

Then today… sitting at the table having breakfast. 

 

And outside…

 ...THE Cedar Waxwing.  A treat to find outside your window eating berries in their silky, shiny collection of brown, gray, and lemon-yellow…

Beautiful feathers accented by a subdued crest, rakish black mask, and brilliant-red wax droplets on the wing feathers.

Filling the air with their high, thin, whistles…

What do I do all day in my little white cottage; some people ask.  They want to know… days are too short for all I do and want to see done.  I go about my little white cottage doing this doing that, from time to time, too, looking outside, studying the surrounding, listening to a new bird song over the privets, a racketing of wings, trying to understand the ruckus of crows and sometimes… trying to discover God with my ears and heart when the eye cannot see or would not see.  Always trusting my heart to understand that what cannot be explained. 

Life at the little white cottage...

Another cold, cloudy day. And the morning woke up wrapped in a deep froze.  When I looked outside the window this morning as I usually do first thing after waking up, I thought it had snowed during the night.  For the land was covered in ices and the scenery upon which my somewhat still sleepy mind came to, transported me far away to the house in the roses and those early snowy mornings when I used to wake up to a world tinted white in ices, resembling a fairytale out of a movie.

I cannot stop thinking of how blessed I’ve been and how thankful I am to be able to stay home and enjoy my days in such blissful quietness and gentleness.  Am I a hermit?  My heart is.  It yearns for it—the seclusion and interior detachment, the silence, the solitude, the desire for spiritual growth and unity with Nature.  I am aggravated by the foolishness and wickedness of this world and don’t desire its nearness.  If I could, if I could choose the dwelling place of my heart, no doubt I would chose the shelter of the garden with only the yellow-winged Tanager for a friend and the wail of the mourning dove for company.

Solitude—the practice of our "waiting for, and on God" is much needed in our world.

I’ve been writing. Continuing working on a project that is taken on too much time and should have been finished by now; or better yet, forget it by now.  For I am writing out of my scope; writing in a language that is not my Mother Tongue.  A dare too far?  But my last book (in Spanish) is now ready to come out next month.  What a privilege when a total stranger would come to me and hug me because they have already met me through my writings.    

It has gotten so cold around here that I finally had to bring in the rest of the ferns I had sitting out in the garage. Our little windowed-dinning room is now cocooned in a leafy green atmosphere that I love.  This natural ambience brings such peacefulness to my surroundings and simple days…

I am excited about those warmer sunny days ahead, and I’ve been dreaming everyday with things I want to see and do in the garden.  I can hardly wait for spring to arrive—a woman fairy, that’s how I see it.  A fairy named ‘Spring’.  I can almost see her swathed in her muslin dress of soft pastels inspired by elements of nature, as she descends from the sky like a Mary Poppins of sorts carrying in her left hand a lovely umbrella made out of thousands of English roses.  Ah, do hurry in your journey through the seasons, lovely Spring.

LINKING TO:

 THE FIVE STAR FRUGAL LINK