Summer in the South

Summer has definitely arrived to the South.  Heat waves shift and travel up the hill across our little white cottage like tiny happy ghosts.   I can hear them singing "There's Good Boos To-Night" as they move and dance and, one by one, dissolve behind the hill... 

The fireflies, too, have come out of their hiding places, and are enchanting our summer nights with their teeny lanterns and flying wish lights, as they scatter beams of light and joy and amazement beyond my dreams over grasses, and flowerbeds and all around our little world.

Every evening, when the moon comes out, you'd see them busily decorating trees and dark green boughs with twinkling clear lights, turning our summer nights into a real Christmas in June. We like to sit in our front porch, and quietly watch them decorating the night away, as they turn each tree and bush into translucent turquoise Christmas Trees.   What a lovely, enchanting place this is, and what an amazing sight those fireflies are in the shadows of the silent summer nights.  I almost want to run inside and bring out my homemade Christmas ornaments and brightly dyed popcorn garlands to add to this fanfare of lights and joyfulness.  

    This is what summer is all about at the little white cottage in the woods...

Oh I could say that there's more than just meets the eye 'around here, as you'd imagine.  I could say that I got bitten by a spider or some other type of awful critter the other day and have been sleeping over activated charcoal compresses for two consecutive nights.  I could say that I've been poisoned with poison ivy while cleaning the flowerbeds closest to the creek, which it is in fact as dried as the driest, crinkled patches of grasses that run along our little white cottage like some sad, old handkerchiefs, because the heat is to intense it is burning the land and everyone else in it.  

I could also say that the gardenia tree I've been nurturing for way too long, is doing so poorly I'm about to give up and throw it away, that some of my beautiful hostas have been losing their lovely leaves to some type of disease or fungus I haven't been able to identify, or figure out what to do, and, on top of that, our precious goldfish keep disappearing... being snatched away by some unidentified creepy creature that lurks in the night.  

Bugs, mosquitoes, chiggers and such are eating us alive and our walks through the gardens have been comprised to only short trips in the early morning,  although, to be truthful, that is not completely accurate, because I still go out there at all times of day and even at night.  That's why I get bitten, poisoned, dehydrated and more.  But, not even the evil fairies, dwellers of the dark forest could ever stop me from keep doing so... and why would I dwell on such things and forget to look at all the glories we are surrounded by?  Cause, that's just how it is here in the South, and I won't complain because I can never forget how on those super cold days and freezing nights of the North I used to dream and wish for the South... every hour of the day and every hour of night... always dreaming with those hot, long summer days I now have.  Can we be completely happy one day?  With everything being perfect for just a day?  Well, this I believe...  a happy life is not a perfect life. Being happy doesn’t mean that everything is perfect. It means that you’ve decided to look beyond the imperfections.  And that's what I'll do, and hope you'll do too.

Oh, I had part of my hair braided up today and wanted to show you.  I'm so bad at braiding my hair, never been good at it, but this morning it turned out pretty good... me thinks... ;)

Wish I could have been able to take a pic of the back of my head to show you... well, maybe not... must probably, it looked really bad, but since I couldn't see it... hehe!

Ohhh and look at the shoes I found at our Goodwill the other day.... to die for!

And they were my size too!

Super cute, but I didn't get them...

Can't walk on those things any more~

I hope you had a lovely Saturday and a blessed day... 

See you super soon, because I cannot be away from this place for too long! ;)

Bye!

At home...

We got back home past mid-night, to a half moon illuminated little white cottage, and went to sleep right away...

In the morning, when I stood in our all-windowed dinning-room and looked at the all-encompassing, sun-kissed glories outside, I just knew where my heart really belonged...

The vision of a garden dotted in red and pink against the shadowy, mysterious background of the woods beyond, revealed that the Knockout roses had bloomed again while in our absence...

And were now gracefully gifting us with a bountiful second blooming season.  

And over all this lovely concoction of roses and woods, mystery and awe and loveliness beyond my imagination, a dozen wispy, little white butterflies fluttered all around with abandon, as if whispering secrets of freedom and of little joys to flowers and trees...  How very wonderful, and beautiful and enthralling and green, and marvelous my little world then looked...   

A gift of a world waiting for me right in my backyard...

At the pond I fed the goldfish and went onto cutting some of the gladiolus that my father and I had planted two years ago on the farthest beds, to filled glamorous vases.  

...and gathered some spent petals as keepsakes and tokens of affection and remembrance.

Later, in the afternoon, the sky turned dark and heavy with moisture.  A huge crow dived down across the opening in the woods, its black wings shiny in the dimness.  The air began to feel hot and heavy.  I went inside, sat in my little spot by the northern window, and waited for the promise of a downpour to transpire.  But it never rained and, the garden, beckoning me outside again, took me by the hand over to where the blushing beds of pink hydrangea had been waiting for me, and my Felco pruners,  since the end of a glorious May.

I filled the house with glorious pinks...

I have never seen such gorgeous color in all my days.  It is as if Vincent van Gogh himself had raised his bright, colored spirit this way and painted his finest painting all down the flowered beds.  But then again, a mortal's hand can never execute anything as lovely, and pleasing in a delicate, gentle, and glorious way as the works of the Greatest Artist of all time.... for only You could, oh Father...

I am humbled and thankful for all the little things which, put together, constitute my life in a wider sense.  My heart subsist on its knees, and I am a little butterfly fluttering about God's flowing, merciful graces.

I won't think too much, or dwell too much on things I cannot change, for if I chose to think too much or too hard on the appalling events that are transpiring around our world, and especially in our country on these sad days of lost lives, my soul will wither like a flower past its seasons.  I'm choosing pretty images to dwell on... a spring garden erupting with blossoming ivory gardenias and dahlias the color of a dragon’s fire. Antique horse figurines. Strawberry stains on your lips. The smell of fresh grass rolling over sand dunes lining the edge of a trembling sea, blackberry and elderflower cake topped with dusty rose colored icing and lilac blossoms. Antique ballet slippers.  Scarlet colored bows made out of satin. The glowing heart of a soft fire. Whispering winter wind tickling iridescent snowflake covered glass. The Nutcracker...

Oh oh, BTW, have you gotten your name deciphered by the Great Tallulah yet?  No?  Well, what are you waiting?  Click on the appropriate tab under our blog banner above, and get yours!  Ahora!

The house in the roses

Yes, as some of you might have thought, our Mima and Papa had journeyed up north to spend a few days with us girls.  We celebrated birthdays, laughed, danced, sung, jumped on the trampoline until our sides hurt and pretended we were real fairies and princesses.  We made some lovely birthday banners and decorations for our birthday party on Saturday and make some yummy cakes.  Elsa, from Frozen 'land' visited.  She taught us how to behave as true princesses and be proper at all times.  On Sunday we visited a petting zoo.  We got to touch and feed a very tall camel that spit on us, we petted and fed tiny horses and lots of baby goats, and a nice lady, keeper of the animals, let us pet the only sloth there was.  He was as slow and funny looking as all the funny sloths on that movie we saw the previous day.  Then, in the afternoon, we went by the house in the roses...  well, just only our Mima, because she wanted to go all by herself, to gather up in the hem of her long skirts all the moments, and joys and disappointments her little heart could muster upon entering her once upon a time, lovely garden...  ask her, and she'll tell you what she saw, and heard and felt in her precious garden... 

While there, she thought about all of you her dear bloggy friends who have followed her to her little white cottage, down in the south from the time she dwelled in her gardens, at the house in the roses...  She told us that long, thorny weeds grew everywhere there.  Among the roses, around the once lovely Shasta daisies gardens and the salvia and lavender.  The ornamental grasses were so unkempt, they grew like long weeds and her dear rose bushes were in really bad shape, some of them had disappeared entirely.  How did that happen, she didn't know.  The grapevines grew rampant; suffocating every space and taking over the pretty archers.  Weeds and little trees were growing where they were not supposed to, suffocating the climbing roses growing in the pergola in the round garden.  It broke her heart to see all the peonies bushes she planted in the rotunda being suffocated by weeds and such, but she was also happy to see how much they have grown and how round and healthy they were. 

If you ask me, I don't understand my Mima.  Even under such circumstances and negligence and carelessness, she still finds those gardens of hers a lovely place to be and a verdant and precious island of peace and enchantment like a gem hiding under rubbish... you go tell her she doesn't need to worry.  She will always have flowers to grow and roses to perfume her soul... 'cause that's how I feel, and that's how it is...  

The house in the roses

Once upon a time... there was a garden...

There were numbers of standard roses which had so spread their branches that they were like little trees. There were other trees in the garden, and one of the things which made the place look strangest and loveliest was that climbing roses had run all over them and swung down long tendrils which made light swaying curtains, and here and there they had caught at each other or at a far-reaching branch and had crept from one tree to another and made lovely bridges of themselves.

There were neither leaves nor roses on them now and Mary did not know whether they were dead or alive, but their thin gray or brown branches and sprays looked like a sort of hazy mantle spreading over everything, walls, and trees, and even brown grass, where they had fallen from their fastenings and run along the ground. It was this hazy tangle from tree to tree which made it all look so mysterious.

Mary had thought it must be different from other gardens which had not been left all by themselves so long; and indeed it was different from any other place she had ever seen in her life. "How still it is!" she whispered. "How still!" Then she waited a moment and listened at the stillness.

The robin, who had flown to his treetop, was still as all the rest. He did not even flutter his wings; he sat without stirring, and looked at Mary. "No wonder it is still," she whispered again. "I am the first person who has spoken in here for ten years."

She moved away from the door, stepping as softly as if she were afraid of awakening some one. She was glad that there was grass under her feet and that her steps made no sounds. She walked under one of the fairy-like gray arches between the trees and looked up at the sprays and tendrils which formed them. "I wonder if they are all quite dead," she said. "Is it all a quite dead garden? I wish it wasn't."

A rainy Sunday morning

A rainy morning.  I spent the weekend surrounded by dear friends, in fellowship, listening to the Word of God and laughing a whole lot.

On Sabbath morning, I wore the pretty, lacey handkerchief skirt that my husband gave me for Mother's Day...

I adore this wispy, frilly skirt that's abundant in lace and white loveliness all throughout...

For shoes, I chose my favoritest pair of high heels in the whole wide world... I had have these shoes almost forever.  I should move on, and gift them away, but I find myself attached to them and would not part from them for nothing in the world... for some very strange reason, they make me feel like Cinderella in her glass slippers... they are my magical shoes.  I was remembering that this 'strange' love goes a long way back and I've been talking about these shoes for as far as I can remember.... you can click HERE, if you care to read what I had to say of them long, long time ago when we were still living at the house in the roses.... ;) 

I should had gone for a pedi, but I didn't... what I did, was having my nails done... choosing the right color, however, was so hard... so many options, and every color a lovely dream...  which one would you have chosen?

I finally chose this pretty 'summer' pink...  it is so bright, and cheerful, and I just love it...

...in the wet, rain-darkened garden, everything is super green, and every tree and every bush hold a raindrop on emerald leafy hand...

The gladiolus that my dad and I planted two years ago when we moved here are embellishing the garden in full magenta and yellow magic.

They are as tall as I've ever seen gladiolus, and are lovingly blooming here and there, like gracious jewels gifted by the gods who hide in the garden and hover above all...

I see the winds of change blowing on a certain way, and thus I spent the firsts hours of my day after waking up thinking, and wondering, and browsing the internet absentmindedly, looking through page after page of homes for sale in our area that have a basement, or a mother in law suit or homes large enough where we could accommodate mom and dad and go for the big move.  But all of them lacked charm, and I ambled through our quiet, little white cottage looking at everything we've done here, and everything we love, and of those we love, and simply found myself short on every thing.  The sweeping view of the garden outside our dinning room welcomed me to the morning...

...and gave me the certainty that everything is going to be fine, no matter what...

Thank you for being here, for listening, and being one more friend among my dear friends...