My mornings...

Wanna come with me for a little morning jog through our neighborhood?

Yes?  Ok then, com'on!

So nice for you to come along... but beware, lots of hills 'round here!

It is such a beautiful morning.  Sunlight has the quality of gold and the evergreen-clad slopes and neighborhood hilly roads rest in peaceful quietness, imbuing the spirit with energy, and goodness... at this precious hour of day, the neighborhood reposes in sweet gentleness, free of mundane voices and activities... only the songs of birds to accompany you, and warm, gentle breezes to welcome you to the new day; invigorating your senses and pushing you ahead of you... to all the goodness there is to be found in Nature...

Are you tired yet?...  com'on!

Breathe in. Breathe out...

Feels awesome...

Feel so free!

As I go up the road I imagine going up a mountain. I'm on top of the earth, higher than anything except the clouds and the treetops.  Beyond the horizon, you can see the humps of taller mountains shrouded in a blue fog, and far below, the village, nestled among trees... a scenic lake is hidden somewhere.  Soon we'll reach it. Towering hemlocks seems to go by as we pass, and we feel the curious effect of soundlessness as we rose into the mist and onto higher hills around the road's cutbacks and curves.  

Goats gnaw in the yards of little country cottages, only, in real life, is just dogs instead.  Here is that monster of a Pyrenees always growling and barking at you in his deep baritone voice as you go by... he had given me more than a few scares before.  It is nice that now his owners have finally put up some type of a home-made fence for the sake of neighbors and passersby... a second Pyrenees as big as that one is still let to roam freely, but she is not that aggressive.

You'll find the lovelies of little cottages scattered around as you go by...

All parapet in lushness so amazingly green...

I can see my influence in the decor of the porches on some of the little cottages... 

See the pillows and lanterns? Hehe...

This house is hidden behind the loveliest of a shade garden.  

I love going by and drink in every detail through my eyes...

At this point my energy is in its peak.  I pick up speed and my face and body feel warm and prickly. There just isn't a more basic, down-to-earth, inexpensive way for the average person to achieve fitness than by jogging, and it is such a freeing experience... 

Here on the South, people bring their favorite chairs outside, and sit right on the grass in front of their houses to watch the world go by... and always always surrounded by Nature... I just love it.

As I go by the Cat Lady's house I'd say hello to all the kittens and cats there, while they sit and watch me with funny, odd faces, probably thinking the same about me...

Are you tired yet?  No?  Go ahead, you can go faster if you wish.  I will slow down now.  Why, I am back at my starting point!  The little white cottage awaits at the top of the hills under the warm, precious morning.  A pearl sitting on a green sea, indeed.  

Thank you for coming along with me.  Such fun it was! I hope you too enjoyed our little morning rendezvous!  I know, I need new running shoes! ;)

Here's a little video I made this morning, for your enjoyment... ;) 

See you next time at the same hour! ;)

The rains

The other day, a hasty darkness descended like an early night upon the garden.  Birds flew away to their hiding places, furtive down the woods, and every voice in nature quieted down.  I call this most impetuous, swift moment of a fracture of time, "the moment before rain". 

A sudden thunderstorm, with hail as big as marbles made its presence known, crashing into our hilly neighborhood in daunting, strange sounds.  From my window, I saw the wind spinning up a tornado, but it wasn't.  It was just the force of the rain and hail and the terrible sound of Nature, when mad.  And it rained so much and with such incredible force, that I felt a tinge of fright in the deepest, calmest part of my little heart.  Wind, and rain started hitting on window panes, and broken branches and leaves accumulated on the hollow of the skylight on the kitchen ceiling.  Above it, the sky appeared dark, and menacing. 

Then the rain subsided, and just as quickly as it came it went, and the sun came out again.  Little swirls of fog started coming up the ground and from the trees, and from people's roofs, danced little ghost of fog, created by rain and humidity.  I saw these ghostly figures traveled up the hill in a happy little dance, and I saw their lost souls hopping up and down waiving their little hands at me as they march up the hill...

In the back garden, towards that part where the woods meets the hedge of the hosta gardens, everything looked magical.  Light streaming through tree branches filled each space as sheets of fog drifted up from the ground to meet this light, gently, mysteriously and capriciously lovely. 

 Privet branches bent low, heavy with rain...

Forming a secluded path above my head...

...and the little creek swelled and water rushed through the edge of the garden in quieted, little notes....

...in the forest, in that open space where the fountain stands and birds stand still, sunlight poured through tree branches forming visible sheets of light, and cheerfulness and amazement and hope...

Above the canopies of trees, it opened up a clearing through which light filtered through, and passing among a clot of thick privet trees in flower and thorny bonds of vines, it filled the woods with golden nuggets of magic.  I closed my eyes and dreamed a path through he woods.  I could fly to the top!

I love the rain of the south.  It is a different rain from the northern rain.  And when it's all done, and the rain stops, it always leaves behind this enchantment of a supple and green and renewed earth, where the ghosts of Nature are allow to materialize and come up from the ground to meet us in our own sacred space... to share dreams, lost wishes, longing for something beyond the self, and always about love.

The sun was low among the privet, and I saw that it was filled with liquid gold...

Liquid golden suns brings bird songs into your heart.  Why had I always thought of that?  

Perhaps it was a story I heard when growing up, or maybe it is the story of my own heart...

These are long slow days. Rain swells the hours, making them sing, and cling to the walls of our little white cottage.  I write nothing but dreams and words full of raindrops and misty days.  I try to make the hours go slower; lengthen those special moments at breakfast when sitting at our large, square table overlooking the gardens outside, but I cannot retain the hours, or the moments.  They slip through my fingers, like water.  I am a creature of words and dreams and stars, and for some inexplicable reason, sometimes I know I'm that bird under a riff of rain that flies in the clouds...     

The gypsy that I was...

So I'm back to the Velvet Underground

Back to the floor that I love

To a room with some lace and paper flowers

Back to the gypsy that I was to the gypsy that I was...

  

Back to the solitude of my home after our first campout of the year.  Back from long gypsy journeys, forest winds, mossy stones, gypsies names, old legends, great joys and small sorrows too. My heart aches for things I cannot understand or define.  My womb yearns for the fruits it nourished and the bones of my bones, a spirited little gypsy girl named Ariadna and the beautiful, ancient soul secreted in the ageing body of a certain Tallulah.  Stories.

If it was up to me, we'd only ever have dreams and gypsy voyages.  We'd have always the cobalt-dust heart of summer skies, blush-pink roses, tender breezes, birds for friends, wings for arms, the opening hour of gentle, glorious light before the start of day clambering up on us, the silence of the mid-morning garden, the taste of mint in the tip of my tongue, French lilac scent, sourdough bread with cream cheese and apricot jam, the quality of sunlight pressing on the edge of another horizon, ancient stories told by the old ones atop hayrides and wind-blown hair on a cool May afternoon. The Moon-eyed people and pre-Columbian ruins to accompany you.  Heartbeat pressed against heartbeat for encouragement and aid on cold, windy starlight nights while keeping stories afresh under the wing of my heart. 

So I'm back to the Velvet Underground

Back to the floor that I love
To a room with some lace and paper flowers
Back to the gypsy that I was to the gypsy that I was...

(to Tessa... and our time together)

One Room challenge: The living room reveal

Hello everyone! I am excited to be here today for the grand finale of the Spring 2016 One Room Challenge, hosted by Linda of Calling It Home.  Welcome to our little white cottage!

I've been decorating and redecorating our little white cottage ever since we moved in, two years ago. Our small living room had been through a lot of changes ever since; not to mention the amount of furniture arranging and rearranging, colors and styles it has seen in those few years. The photograph below is how our living room looked like on that first week of our little challenge... You can click HERE if you want to see more of the BEFORE pictures...

And this is how our small living room looks now after the transformation...  

I wanted to create a contemporary, yet sophisticated space.  I started off with a simple color scheme of white and black to guide me in my choices.  After that, everything else fell in place.  From the area rug to accessories to wall art and paint. It was the best way to ensure a cohesive space that conveyed the look and feel I was after.    

A palette of white and black is such a charismatic style... 

AND it is also timeless elegance!

All furniture remained the same.  I just rearranged them
and brought in tons of decorative pillows

I love the mixture of geometric and graphic patterns, and was not shy adding them all around... from the bold black and white decorative pillows, to picture frames to lamp shades and accessories...   

One can never go wrong when mixing patters.  

The key is to vary the scale, from small to large, of the patterns.

A white and black palette can seem minimalist or even cold, but it really isn't... I love that this high-contrast combination added instant sophistication and drama to our humble little cottage...
  

An antique thrift-store mirror embellished the wall over the mantel.  A few items decorate it: A couple of large white vases from Target, gold candelabras from TJ Max, old books and a cute vintage bottle embellished with jewelry and rhinestones, holding some white spray-painted branches from the trees in our backyard.  

I peppered my black and white palette with an obvious sprinkling of warm metallic. I like how the few pieces in metallic gold add glamour to the room without being too loud or overpowering it.  This thrift store pheasant ornament was originally dark wood.  I spray-painted it in gold to match the decor...

The square mirror on the left wall is from Pier 1

I covered a large book with some cheetah print scrapbooking paper 

and placed a geometric black and white dish holding a house plant on top. 

The bleached-white 106" Lenda curtains with tie-backs and cheer panels are from Ikea. The metallic large vases, from Ross.  I also added some more books as part of the accessories, and covered them in white and black geometric fabric and wrapping paper.

I then upholstered a small clay flowerpot with adhesive shelf liner and painted the trim with DecoArt Americana Acrylic paint in gold, using a small brush and my fingers...   

  Decorative pillows are from Ikea, Target and Ross.
A few more house plants as accents...

Here's that same chair now covered with a white slipcover for a warmer, winter look... 

For the largest and main wall on this room, I wanted some big statement art that could create a dynamic focal point and pull the eye to it the moment people entered the room.  But big pieces of art come with big price tags.  What I did?  I turned an interesting piece of fabric into an artwork!  The result: Some inexpensive, professional-looking wall hanging! Exactly what I was envisioning! 

Nothing makes a room look frumpy quite like a lonely, undersized print floating in a big expanse of white wall...  and nothing makes a better statement like a big, bold piece of art!  And this project was so easy to make.  I could have used a large canvas or a piece of wood to glue the fabric onto, but because I am lazy, I opted to glue the fabric directly onto the wall.  For this, I used liquid starch and then I added molding around the fabric to create a frame. Bam — instant oversized artwork!

Looking down onto the room...

I'm still amazed when I walk in the room and see what a major impact that large tree art alone made in the space!

The PS MASKROS Pendant lamp on ceiling is also from Ikea.  I love the flowery design it creates on walls and ceilings when lighted up...  and here is that room with a pop of color on a decorative pillow and flowers in large white vase!

White chair slipcover from Target

And that's it!  What do you think? 

Stop by Calling it Home today to see other fantastic reveals. 

Thanks for following along! 

PS:  Our living room had been featured on SHUTTERFLY. You're welcome to visit us there!