Lightening up Our Entainment Center

Our entertainment center has three sections - the center piece juts out from the two side bookcases on either side of it. Though cherry is not my first choice it is a beautiful piece but the shelf spaces are like an endless place of darkness and the decorations got lost in it. For months I was wanting to do something different that wasn't permanent, i.e., painting. This week I thought of a simple solution that was quick and easy. I measured the backs, cut bead board to fit (because I already had that), primed and decoupaged it with dictionary pages.

I'm pleased with the results. The shelves are adjustable and there was enough space for the boards to fit in behind the shelves.

 Our wedding picture and invitation under a cloche.

 The center shelf with old books and ironstone.

 More old books with flower frogs, a magnifying glass, antique eye glasses, a ceramic apple and wooden shoes.

 The two baskets on both side are children's books for the grands.

Since the backside is bead board, I can interchange it if I want but for now, I'm happy with this easy change!

Week End

Our church had Communion on Sunday evening. Soft music and Scripture together in the moments before the service began is a powerful way to begin commemorating the suffering and Death of our Lord. We look forward to celebrating His resurrection at our Easter Service on Easter Sunday!

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I, along with three friends saw the movie, October Baby, that premiered in the theaters on Friday - it's good and it's a tear-jerker!

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I'm working on a quick and easy project but can't decide whether to use French wallpaper or dictionary pages that will be placed on the back of book shelves...dear me, such a profound decision!

Just joking, people, just joking! :)

However, you may give your opinion!

My Teeny Tiny Garden

Most of the daffy's are finished...old-fashion yellow that have lived here since the house was built, pale creamy, newer yellow-centered and pink-centered daffy's, sitting under the window on the counter. It's my new favorite place to enjoy flowers. The blue bottle came from some drops I had been taking and looks pretty sitting on the window sill.

Strawberries blooming...in March?! Oh, I loved this early warm weather we had - it's seasonal now with cooler temps. This strawberry bed is new and small and I'm already thinking to ask MR D to make a larger frame for next year.

I have to cage the lettuce from the Wilde Beastes that surround us to protect these babies. And covered both from the frost that was predicted for this morning...it was chilly but no frost. 

I have NEVER planted a tomato in March! But I'm trying it this year...it's covered by an antique cloche my MIL used to start plants.

And I'm experimenting with a new way of ground prep. Newspapers is not new but the next step is, at least for me - I'll keep you all posted!

Abbeville, South Carolina

My brother Paul and his family live in Abbeville, South Carolina. Last week he had a serious surgery, serious enough we all weren't sure if he would survive. God graciously brought him safely through. The end of the week, I traveled with two of my brothers to spend a few days with the family...three GOOD days. Twelve hours of driving gives a lot of time to talk, read and sleep! I was treated like a queen...didn't have to do any driving, had the back seat to myself and they made sure my needs were taken care of!

Ed - we tease him about his hat but secretly, I think he looks handsome in it!

 Roy - a true gentleman!

Yeah, I'm proud of my brothers and they're wonderful dependable driving companions!

Abbeville is a quaint small town with lots of southern charm. The street is brick-paved and traffic circles in a one-way around a minature park with a large fountain and benches under southern trees that invite one to sit and watch the world go by.

The Opera House is undergoing a face-lift on the outside and is still used though the summer season.

It has Olde-World charm inside...

                                  with interesting signs posted around the walls like these...

Hm-m-m - I'm thinking we could use some of this in today's world!

The architecture is beautiful!

 This charmer of days gone by for sale? H-m-m-m...wonder if the car goes with it?

There's a southern saying about two kinds of Yankees -

a Yankee who comes and leaves as a tourist,

and a damn Yankee that comes and stays...

I think I'll be a damn Yankee and move to Abbeville! :)

(and no offence to any southern folk!)

'Course, if all of our winters and springs would be as mild and early as 2012 has been, I'd be perfectly content to stay here!

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Everdaymoments is having her first giveaway - be sure to stop by, there's spring goodies in it!

S.P.R.I.N.G!

L.O.V.E. this weather! I started this yesterday...

I had a helper.

Three year old Ty.

He loves his puppy cap -

never mind it hit seventy yesterday!

More of both today...ohh-la-la!

Growing up in a Family of Twelve

The Farm

Growing up in a family of twelve felt like there were kids everywhere! I was in the middle of the family, so my perception is different than my older/younger siblings. My father was a carpenter by trade. We moved three times that I remember - from a several acre, large house with a carriage barn that was in the middle of our church/school area to a back-of-beyond farm with milking cows and some truck farming.This was the farm where we had an invasion of rats that made their home in between the barn flooring...it really was quite awful!

 Our second move was to a larger farm and my father went back to carperenting. But twelve kids needed something to do! We had a milking cow where we took 'our turn' to milk it by hand and chickens where we gathered and cleaned eggs by hand. Pigs - LOTS of pigs, who would occassionally get out into the yard and root it up and we'd have to chase them back in...ever try to chase pigs? Not easy! We had two LARGE gardens and my mother baked all of our bread. Cooking for fourteen people, three times a day, was lots of work but we never went hungry, thanks to the managing skills of my mother!

Our third move was into a newly built house and two months before we got married, so my stay there wasn't very long. By then half the family was married or getting married.

There's lots of memories interwined with events, some of it good, some not so good. It felt like we fought a lot in an underhand way but I also have good memories of playing 'red light, green light,' hiding-go-seek, having a 'playhouse', kick-the-can and Scrabble in the winter months. We were a game-playing family!

Having a camera was a kind of rarity, so we all feel blessed in having pictures from that long ago time!

Standing: Julia Ann, Marie
On the wagon r-l: Samuel, Rhoda, Ed, Esther
1949 

This is the first complete family picture in my files and was taken in 1950.

Back row: Marie, Dad holding Dorothy, Mom, Julia Ann

Front row: Samuel, Rhoda, Ed, Esther

l-r: Rhoda, Julia Ann, Esther
1949

l-r: Ed, Esther, Dorothy

1951

Standing by age r-l: Julia Ann, Marie, Samuel, Rhoda, Ed, Esther, Dorothy, baby Roy
- 1952 -
At play.

r-l: Esther, Dorothy
undated

From the top down: Julia Ann, Marie, Samuel, Rhoda, Ed
An amish neighbor girl standing at the horse's head.
-undated-

Family picture - 1956

Back l-r: Julia Ann, Marie, Samuel, Rhoda
Front l-r: Ed, Roy, dad, Dorothy, Mom, holding Lil, Ray, Esther

 Samuel died in 1958 at age thirteen from unexpected health issues and three more babies were born into the family...three boys, Paul, Mark and Elvin. They became know as Paulie, Markie, Elvie.
We numbered twelve now. The table was full!

l-r: Julia Ann, Mark, Dad, Paul, Dorothy, Lil, Mark, Ray, Roy, Ed, I was taking the picture

These little boys were busy!

l-r: Mark, Elvin

The stationwagon in the background was our family vehichle and the other car had been my grandparents car and used by the older teens. They were SO embarrassed driving it and I believe we had it only a short time when it got wrecked in an accident on snowy roads.

These two had gotten into some tar and dunked the kitties in the bucket. Mom and Rhoda are cleaning them up.

This is oldest to youngest and not all fit in the picture. I chuckle at this one! 

- the girls -

l-r: Julia Ann, Marie, Rhoda, Esther, Dorothy, Lil

-the boys-

l-r: Ed, Roy, Ray, Paul, Mark, Elvin

Today we live in Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Ohio, Indiana and West Virginia. Julia Ann passed away in May of 1981, very unexpectedly also (I'll post about those deaths another time). My parents lived till their mid eighties. We all spend a week end together once a year and I will be a great, great Aunt this year sometime...dear me, it doesn't seem possible! We've experienced God's amazing grace in places where we needed healing and we love spending time together. Every Monday evening we do a conference call just to chat. Some are having major health issues and this causes us to be very grateful for the time we do have with each other now - I love my family to bits and wouldn't trade a single one of them!

Fleur Garden's Future

To my faithful twentysix followers! I've decided to move this blog over to my Fleur Cottage blog and this will happen in the next several months. There will be a link to Fleur Gardens under the header and all garden related articles will be under that heading so there will still be easy access to it. Until then...

...happy gardening!

Esther

My Mother

My mother grew up in Belleville, PA. She was born in 1920, which was the beginning of the Roaring Twenties, grew up during the Depression years that lasted into the early years of my parent's marriage. She had two brothers and two sisters and was a second-born child between her two brothers. She loved school and wanted to attend high school but her mother needed her at home. Mother is standing between her brothers.

She loved school and wanted to attend the local high school but was needed at home.

(school picture, unknown age)

There was a strong love of horses in the family.

Pictures from her teenage years.

I love this one - a little shy but a tad flirtatious.

But mom was not a flirty woman!

I knew her as almost extremely reserved and quiet but cheerful. And she sang a lot!

I'm thinking she was married in this picture but it's undated.

My parents were both twenty when they got married and soon began a family.

At Niagara Falls.

This was taken at the same time as the one below it of all of us.

One of the few professionals that was taken of them in 1997.

This was taken two years later at the beginning of her thirteen years of dementia.

The 'lost look' in her eyes is already evident here. My mother had a very real sense of what is proper and a composed dignity even in her dementia. Her death at 85 was one of a joyous homecoming when she again knew who she was...that was so important to me - her death was a new beginning!