Excerpts of my life

I started running again this week.  It’s been very cold around here, but sunshiny mornings are promising and my journeys through our hilly neighborhood have been a most delightful imposition on my spirit.   Going up a rigorous hill yesterday proved that I am not in the best of shapes, but because I was able to maintain my usual easy run pace for a while I thought I could make it up that hill and only slowed down when I noticed I was struggling to breath.  It took some awful moments of utterly helplessness and panic before my heart rate started slowing down and I was finally able to calmed down.  What an awful moment that was.

Not every day is a sunny day around here these days; in fact if it isn’t rain, is cold and cloudiness so nippy that your best alternative is just to stay inside, enjoy your tea and try to keep warm… 

...but what a privilege is being able to stay home…
like a happy cat sitting by the window enjoying the scenery outside.

I love the few hours before dark on wintry days, love to stand directly under the heating vents on the ceiling and feel the warmth that flows down when I’m feeling super cold, love my books and magazines in the morning, a cup of coffee in mid-afternoon, writing on rainy days, homemade bread and black bean soup in crock pot smells after four o’ clock.  

How much do you love winter? Are you a person who can't wait for the temperatures to drop? Or are you a person who can't wait to bust out the shorts and tank tops? 

 

Whatever your preference, be happy and enjoy your little moments… life is a gift from God above. Live each day with peace and love; no matter what storm travels through.

Love,

The master bedroom

We went to Ikea yesterday and came home with some of their treasures…

Cushion covers for our master bedroom!  I love love decorative pillows.  They add so much softness and comfort to beds and sofas… and the best part—it is such a quick, affordable way to freshen up my rooms whenever I feel like a change.   Which happens very often, I should say ;)

I have so many pillows I don’t know what to do with them anymore.  But Ikea came up with the wonderful idea of selling covers so that I can continue changing the look of my rooms with pillows… You just stuff your old pillows into your new cushion covers and voila… instant new pillows without the expense and without having to figure out where to storage your old ones…

So I just stuffed my $35 Simply Shabby Chic Euro Sham Pillows into my new $7 Ikea covers and now my bedroom got a lovely new look…

Last summer I painted the furnishing in our master room… headboard, two night stands and a large chest of drawers.  They were too dark and dull looking for our little white cottage, but I didn’t want a positively true bright white paint for my furnishings either.  So, I chose a beautiful and elegant shade called “Primitive”, from Americana Décor Chalky Finish Paint.  I spray-painted the originally silver knobs in black and replaced the knobs on the dresser with some ceramic knobs from Hobby Lobby. 

In my last post HERE on our master bedroom I mentioned how I wasn’t sure if the striking black and white window panels I got there originally were the right choice for that room, which was already overpowered by the amount of patterns I had there.  What was I thinking?  What a huge decorating mistake that was! 

So I replaced the patterned panels for all solid white cotton panels.  And also changed the black and white patterned area rug for this… the fur of cat, and it feels like one too… so soft!

My panels are from the Classic Cotton Panels line from Martha Stewart Living… They’re so soft and light, yet solid enough for privacy.  And I still get all the luster and brightness I love.   They make the room look bright and soothing at the same time.   

 What a huge different that alone made in the room…

I also white washed both the wicker baskets I have there… and hung some fairy lights for some bohemian love... I love how they twinkle my evenings away in voyages and dreams...

I’m now looking into changing the lamp shades for some solid whites… Isn’t this adorable?  So cottagey!  Also from Ikea.   

 They come in pendants and table lamps.  And at such affordable price too... only $39.99

My dream is to have the carpet replaced by hardwood floors some day... but that's still somewhere in a distant future. 

For now I’ll continue enjoying my little life as is… happy to live it simply and unpretentiously, as I try to make everything around me feel cozy and beautiful, on a budget.

Thanks for stopping by!

Cielo

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