WHEN WILL IT END!!!!

I live in Canada.  I love being Canadian and living in Canada......but come on!!!  It snowed again over night and it is still snowing!  I know it is only February but we have not had a break all winter.

I am tired of all of this.  We have icicles hanging off of the farmhouse even bigger than these.  The dogs hate the snow, except Daisy our Great Pyrenese she sleeps in it.  Forget driving into the city and parking on a side road, not going to happen.

It is hard on wildlife and farm animals.  We feed the birds all day but I worry about the deer in the woods way back from us I hope everyone survives.

Wherever you go this winter any time of day someone is out shoveling.  But you know what....

So, so true!

I am so desperate to get out in the garden, see some green, smell the earth.  Is this our future?  A snowbound picnic, pretty but not for me.

I know it will end and we will forget how bad it has been but I won't believe it until the first Snowdrop pops up its lovely little head,  hopefully it won't get frozen off!

HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY!!!!!!

Happy Valentine's Day!  This is the very first Valentine's Day that I am actually going on a real Valentine's date!  That' right folks, this girl has never had a real Valentine's Day date.  We have always just stayed home and had a little dinner but this time we have been invited to friends and the 6 of us will be celebrating romance and friendship.

I wish I had those shoes to wear, maybe next year.  Love these nails.

I have made some yummy ganache filled heart cookies to take as a treat.  I wish I had seen these birdies first they are adorable.  Yum, what a cake but on my life change diet even today I wouldn't not indulge in that.

I have decorated the farm for Valentine's Day.  We celebrated last weekend on my husband's birthday, with the kids and grandbabies.  Our little sweetheart loved all of the hearts.

The only thing I regret about Valentine's Day is that February in Canada is brutal.  It is dull and freezing outside so as much as I would love a starlit Valentine's table we will have to settle for candlelight. 

I am thinking of starting a new tradition and moving Valentine's day to June 14th. or maybe May 14th.

Well, whatever the weather is where you are I wish you all a HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY!!!!

MELLOW YELLOW!!!!

 When we purchased our farmhouse many years ago it was a typical old farmhouse that had not had much love in it's past few years.  We had a few months before we moved in so I picked out all of the paint and wallpaper for each room.  We had 3 bedrooms at the time and no kids so I used the bedroom that is now my office/closet as the spare bedroom where I put my beautiful brass bed I had had since I was a child.

I decided to do something bold with colour, since we had been in an apartment for 2 years.  I picked OOPSY DAISY YELLOW as the paint colour.  Now in the store it looked fab.  I should have known after what happened on the way home it may not have been the best choice.  A friend of mine came with me, I did not drive yet so we took the bus.  We sat at the back of the bus with two cans of paint on our laps.  Suddenly the bus jerked to a stop and the OOPSY DAISY PAINT fell off of my friends lap onto the floor and.....you guessed it, opened.  A river of OOPSY DAISY poured down the aisle of the bus and down the back door step.  Embarrassed is not the word.  The bus was evacutated, thank goodness we were close to home and did not have to board the new bus the not so happy passengers were waiting for.

Well, I painted the bedroom and I loved it.  It was actually brighter than the curtains in this picture.  The first time we had a guest, my husband's brother, I knew it was a little too bright for a bedroom that got the first sun in the mornings.  Oh yes, I forgot, I did not have curtains up yet.  The night before my husband and his brother had celebrated a bit, well more than a bit.  When my brother-in-law woke up I heard a loud moan.  All I can say is a night of partying and OOPSY DAISY YELLOW PAINT did not go well together.

I did not paint any other rooms yellow again but we did have our house painted a lovely, cheery Daffodil Yellow for a few years.

I do love yellow.  Not in clothing, it does not suit me but I love the look of a bowl of lemons or pears.  The golden yellow of sweet honey and of course yellow desserts.....heaven!

Who can deny the beauty of a luscious yellow sunrise or sunset .  Daffodils, the first sign of Spring and the happy Sunflower, well the name says it all.

And yellow birds, everytime I see a canary in the garden it still takes my breath away.  I cannot resist the soft down of the Spring Ducklings....adorable.

And last but not least there is of course the YELLOW BRICK ROAD.  Dorothy, The Time Man, The Scarecrow and The Lion followed it and had a happy ending.

I hope you have a little "YELLOW" in your life today.....and a happy ending!

THE SIMPLE TEA TOWEL.......

When my Grandmother passed away, and we were sorting through some of the cupboards and blanket boxes, we came across lots of vintage Tea Towels.

They were all very pretty and intricate and unused.  Some had embroidered pictures, some flowers, some birds.  Many were linen with lovely printed patterns on them.

The funny thing was, my Grandparents always, since I could remember, used the plain striped or checkered tea towels everyday.  I had never seen any of these pretty things out, even for the holidays or when they were having guests. 

My Grandmother was an Antiques Dealer but rarely did she buy linens.  She did like quilts and coverlets but they were ones she kept, which were sometimes displayed in the bedrooms, but she really never was into tea towels.  This could only mean that most of these were gifts to her problably from when she had gotten married.

After finding these beautiful old pieces I started to think about my own tea towels.  I realized that like my Grandmother, I had a stash put away myself.  I went home and took them out of one of the blanket boxes.  Lo and behold, I had quite a few from my wedding showers and birthday gifts.  What was I saving them for?

I am pretty sure my Grandmother and I are not the only Towel Hoarders out there.  Do you have some lovely linen tea towels that are just too nice to dry dishes with.  Why not take them out of their storage spaces and make something out of them.  Pillows are alway good.  I have made some of my nicest pillow covers from old and new tea towels.

Curtains are always a great thing to use vintage tea towels for.  I love the linen striped ones, so country looking.  If you have a lot of the same type, like floral or birds, stitch them all together and make one big curtain or use them as a tablecloth.

They make great bags too, just the right size.

I am not that old but I don't think many people use these anymore.  I remember in one of my first Home Economics classes ( do they have those now!) I sewed a clothespin bag out of a tea towel.  I love them and they really are very useful.

I absolutely adore this idea, I am going to do these for our grandbabies.  You can buy terrycloth tea towels very cheaply and if you go to OBSESSIVELY STITICHING BLOG you can get the step by step instructions for this cute little robe.

So why not get out those tea towels, what are you saving them for?  If you don't want to repurpose them then just use them.  I make sure I buy really pretty tea towels now, I have them for all of the seasons and holidays and I just love to use them and look at them hanging on the hook in the kitchen, they are so happy to be out of the blanket box.