My World this Week

I adore lovely morning light coming in through lace curtains.

My goodness, this summer is passing quickly.  It is odd how, where I live, winter seems to go on forever and summer flies by.  But this summer has not been a good one where weather is concerned with flooding rains and storms having begun in spring.

We are now having a stretch of about four days without rain in the forecast, the longest dry period in weeks and weeks and weeks.  The garden doesn't like the soggy conditions, neither do the crops in the state.  How I wish we, in our part of the Midwest, could share our too-much-rain with drought ridden California.

If you wrote an e-mail and I haven't responded, don't give up on me!  Except for brief answers with the iPad, all of my computer time of blog writing, e-mail answering, etc. is squeezed into the time my husband is not using the office and/or the computer (which is really his).  At the moment he is mowing the lawn.  So I grabbed the computer.  Not literally but you know what I mean.

So after that long tirade, here is what was happening in my world last week.

Reading

Green Dolphin Street still is my ongoing fiction reading and Disaster is my nonfiction reading.  It was sent to me by a friend and I'll write more about it later.  But it is about the affects of Hurricane Katrina.  Amazing.

Two review books arrived today so the above books must be set aside for the reading of those books.  I will review both next week.

Morning Light

Decorating by Tweaking

So... after I moved the chalkboard to that wall, the other items there just didn't look right.  And I really wanted the chalkboard there.  So I had to do some switch-a-roo decorating with other wall objects.  But I think it worked out fine.

Collecting

I sorted through my cookie cutters last week and kept mostly only the vintage cutters.  There were a few favorites that were newer I kept, like the teacup and teapot!  I like that with less cookie cutters in the jar, you can see them better.

Cookie cutters are a fun collection to begin with children.  They tend to be quite inexpensive and very cute.  Not to mention you can actually use them!

Deck Flowers

I have babied these beauties this year by tucking them under the two small deck tables when there was heavy rain and/or storms in the forecast.  Which, as I mentioned, was almost daily this year.  So they look pretty good.

See that gorgeous herb in the blue container?  That is pineapple sage.  This is the first time I grew it in a container and I love the way it looks.  It will eventually get pretty flowers, too. Last year I grew it in the herb garden but like so many herbs, it didn't survive the brutally cold winter.

Her Fluffiness

P.L.E.A.S.E. Brenda, let me stay and help.  I love creating with you!  Even if you say I am sitting on the paper you need.

Oh, her paws are much better, the swelling has gone down.  Thank you for asking!  Dr. Lisa says the condition is rare and there is no known cure.  The medication helps a little but being a steroid, she can't stay on it.  So prayer is always appreciated.

Q & A

Vee will be happy to know there were no alligators sighted this week.  As am I.  I was asked about the statement I made that during the Great Depression in America, Hobos were known to mark a home if the people gave food and/or shelter to them. (Like I highly suspect the cold blooded critters are doing to my home!)

One must remember, most Hobos were just men who were out of work who road the rails across the nation looking for work.  So there were people (on farms especially) who would make them a sandwich or let them sleep in their barn.

Such accounts of a real life Hobo is given in one of my favorite nonfiction books, The Education of a Wandering Man by Louis L'Amour.  Yes...  that Louis... the famous writer of westerns.  He did his time riding the rails and this account is given in his autobiography (which actually is about how he educated himself by reading and traveling the world).

There was a comment about bacon grease.  I just pour the grease the bacon produces into a bowl to let it cool if I'm in a hurry and directly into the jar if it has had a chance to cool down.  I keep it in the refrigerator.  My mother, however, had a tin that set out on the stove at all times which held her bacon grease.  She never refrigerated it.

NOTE:  I don't have time to create Amazon links this week.  But if you are interested in more information about any of the books, just click on the Amazon widget on the sidebar and it will take you there.  Thank you to all of you who enter your Amazon shopping through a link or the widget!  I get a small percentage and it cost neither of us anything but time.