THE VILLAGE POST OFFICE!!

As you know, I live in a small town.  So small that I go to the neighbouring town ( 5 minutes away) to pick up my packages from the local Post Office.

I am one of those old fashioned people who loves to send packages and letters.  I never miss Birthday Cards, Christmas Cards I even send Valentine's and Easter Cards to my little sweethearts.  Having an Etsy business I am at the Post Office quite often.  I also order a lot online so when I receive a pick up notice in my mailbox, the lovely old kind that sits on the side of the road across from our farm, I cannot wait to pop over and see what wrapped goodies have arrived.

Our Post Office is not as quaint as these but it is still a small brick building and every Spring flowers are out front.  The postal workers, Debbie and Jeannette always greet you with a smile, a laugh and they know everyone by their first name.

As I wrote in a post earlier this year, here in Canada the Postal services are changing.  They have done away with many Postmen and replaced door to door service with those ugly community pick up boxes.  Some areas do not even have a pick up Post Office their packages are left sitting out in front of the community boxes.  So far this has not been our plight here in Jerseyville but everytime I walk up to our Post Office door and there is a notice posted I dread it will say they are closing.

I hope this does not happen.  I would miss seeing Debbie and Jeanette every week, meeting other people in the post office for a chat having that human interaction.  We have enough machine communication in our lives it is so nice to see friendly faces, to walk into a shop where they know your name, to feel like someone actually cares. 

BLESSED OSTARA, SPRING IS COMING!

March 21 is the beginning of Ostara, the pagan welcoming of Spring Equinox.

This is a time of rebirth, blessing the earth.  It is a time to plant seeds, walk in the woods and welcome the baby animals into our beautiful world. 

Easter comes with Spring along with new life, new flowers, and the earth renews herself after a long cold winter.  The word Easter comes to us from the Norsemen's Eostur, Eastar, Ostara, and Ostar, and the pagan goddess Eostre, involving the season of the growing sun and new birth.  The "Easter" Bunny was originally a symbol of fertility and their rapid reproduction rate cannot be denied which is why it is the symbol of Ostara and of course why our culture has embraced it as the symbol of Easter.

I usually celebrate Ostara by starting my summer seeds, walking in the woods with the dogs and getting the yard ready for Spring.  Unfortunately it is still freezing here so I will celebrate by bringing some lovely store bought Spring potted flowers into the house and lighting candles to bless Eostre.

NOT SPRING YET BUT THAT DOES NOT STOP SPRING CLEANING!

Despite the cold weather I still had to start my Spring Cleaning.  In my last post I told you we are redoing the upstairs well, it is not a simple task.

Every Spring there seems to be more clutter hidden in my house.  Closets are tumbling out ( that is why we are building a nice big one, by the way that is not my closet) , drawers are full and for some reason there is a lot of paper.  Are we like spuirrels and chipmunks.  Do we feel a need to gather over the winter?

Every Spring I clean, declutter and donate.  Every Spring!  There are two of us, 3 dogs and 3 cats in this house.  I blame the cats, they look like secret hoarders to me.  I have tried to follow the rule as in the first photo.  As a matter of fact I donated practically my whole closet the Rescue Dogs Match Yard Sale last May.  I knew I was going to work on myself so losing all  of those clothes was a good start ( 36lbs. so far!)
I also try to keep a routine for cleaning but with organizing fundraising, a hubbie, six pets, two grandbabies, 3 Etsy Shops and a life it does not always happen.

After this Spring Clean and the new upstairs I vow to try to keep to a routine and stay organized.  I found some great cleaning ideas at CRAFT GOSSIP.COM have a look they are really handy ones.

I am so tired of things falling out of my kitchen cupboards that I am going to invest in some container and a labeler.  And plugs, don't get me started.  How can the television, a receiver and blu-ray have so many cords.  Check out IT WORKS FOR BOBBI for some really good organizing ideas.

I use lemons for everything from my hot drink first thing in the morning ( a great cleanse) to getting the water stains off of my tub (well water).  You will be surprised how many uses the little lemon has, check out PROTOTYPE MAMA for 18 of them.

I am glad I am getting all of this done now so that if Spring ever gets here I can just sit and smell the flowers (well, maybe for an hour).

WILL IT NEVER END?

Yesterday here in Southern Ontario, the temperatures reached a balmy 10 degrees c. that is around 50 degree f.  It was so uplifting.  We were out of the house at 7:30 a.m. to go and stay with our little babies and you could smell the earth.  We even took the sweethearts for a long walk, joy!

This is what we woke up to this morning!  Holy Hanna, will this ever end?  How can it be so lovely one day and so horrid the next, it is still snowing we are well over a foot deep.  I am really getting a little down about all of this.  Two years ago if you recall, my son and daughter-in-law lost their cat Kaysar, and we searched for him for weeks.  That was in March and it was so warm we were out after midnight without coats.

I am getting ready for a MayDay Bazaar for Rescue Dogs Match so inside I am surrounded by images of a blissful, warm, colour filled Spring.  Everyone please say a blessing to the Spring Goddess to bring Spring to us.

On another note have you ever listened to the Beatles song "IN MY LIFE".  I listen to it all of the time you should it really is a wonderful song, one of their best written.

 IN MY LIFE

There are places I remember
All my life, though some have changed
Some forever not for better
Some have gone and some remain

All these places had their moments
With lovers and friends
I still can recall
Some are dead and some are living
In my life I've loved them all

But of all these friends and lovers
There is no one compares with you
And these memories lose their meaning
When I think of love as something new

Though I know I'll never lose affection
For people and things that went before
I know I'll often stop and think about them
In my life I love you more

Though I know I'll never lose affection
For people and things that went before
I know I'll often stop and think about them
In my life I love you more
In my life I love you more

Songwriters
LENNON, JOHN / MCCARTNEY, PAUL

Read more: Beatles - In My Life Lyrics | MetroLyrics

DECORATING FROM THE GROUND UP!!!

Last year I decided to redo the upstairs of our farmhouse, specificly the two bedrooms.  I have the hall and our sons old bedroom done just perfect, I love them but our room and the computer/office room had not been done for years.

I started taking things apart last April but could not decide what to do then summer came and we had so much to do on the farm that it just got left.  With such a bleak winter here in Canada I finally decided what I wanted and we are about to start.

 Being part Norwegian I have always been attracted to Scandinavian decor.  The white and pine combined just makes everything look brighten even on the dullest day.

Living in a 235 year old farmhouse is wonderful but it does have its disadvantages....no closets!  I decided to tear out the closet my husband built in our room, which really was not well designed, my fault, and turn the computer room into a closet/computer/office room.  We have slanted ceilings in there so it should work out well.

The floors in that room are hardwood but really nice old hardwood.  Right now they are painted green but I started to sand them and have decided to leave them raw with a light varnish and paint the room a beautiful Scandinavian white.  We will make the closet look like a built in armoire with a curved to and faux legs.

Our bedroom will also be white but we are putting in wide plank pine floors which I will whitewash.  I will finally be able to use the furniture I inherited from my Grandparents that has been stored in my husband shop for over a year.  I have a lovely cupboard that is going there, two gorgeous blanket boxes that will hold, of course, blankets and a nice curved dresser.  It is not like this Swedish beauty but it is nice.  Painting everything upstairs white will make everyday seem so much brighter even in the winter.

The only thing I wish I could get a hold of is a Swedish Mora clock.  That would look so gorgeous in our bedroom or the hall.  I have only ever seen one here, a new one, which would be fine,  I am kicking myself for not buying that.

I am so looking forward to the finished rooms.  It is a lot of work and everytime we take on a huge project like this halfway through I have a mini breakdown but in the end it is all worth it.  I will keep you posted on the progress of my Scandinavian Makeover.

A SUCCESSFUL EVENING AT THE FUNDRAISER!!!!

We had our GIRLS NIGHT OUT FUNDRAISERA on Saturday, that is why I have not posted much lately....exhausted!  Anyway, it was a great success.  We had a snowstorm and people still came...or should I say more people than expected came.  Unfortunately the volunteers who were suppose to come and help us did not show up so Brenda and I had to try and control the over 80 people that came to shop, get readings, reiki, henna tattoos and massages.

I would like to thank the lovely ladies from PARANORMAL PARAGONS for coming and doing their demonstration, bring lovely things to sell, having a Wiccan orientation and for donating a lovely basket.  Everyone enjoyed it so much and I got to meet some amazing women.  They are have a New Web series soon so stop by their site and see what they do.  Thank you so much Kristine, Carol, Lorrie and Suzanne.  I look forward to meeting you all again.

I apologize for the lack of photos.  The photographer who volunteered did not show up and I, in the madness of it all, forgot to put the battery in my camera so I had to rush with my Daughter-in-law to get some pictures with our phones.

The food was great we had some really nice door prizes too.  I would like to give a very grateful thank you to the two companies that donated to us.  Nella Bella thank you so much for the handbag and gorgeous wallets and Arlette from Arlumizu thank you for the absolultely fabulous bag.  We filled them with beauty products and they helped greatly selling raffle tickets.  Also thank you so much to all of the vendors who donated as well, you were wonderful.

Speaking of the vendors, they all had fantastic products, we had artisans, doggie bakers, soap makers, home products, jewellers and beauty products.  Everyone had a wonderful time shopping.

The Masseuses, Tarot Readers, Reiki and Energy Healer all still amazing work, above and beyond.  Our Henna Artist really did some gorgeous tattoos, she was lined up all night.

After a very exhausting night, Brenda and I pulled it all together and with the help of so many gracious people raised $2,100.00 for Rescue Dogs Match.   It was a great amount raised but with 26 dogs to be vetted it is still a drop in the bucket.  We are doing another MayDay Bazaar Fundraiser May 17th. with all vendors and someone else is having a Mother's Day Sale in April.  There is also a donation fund set up on GoFundMe  so if anyone would like to donate they can go there.

There is one last special thank you I would like to give, Brenda's adorable little niece, Sierra,  was my helper in drawing the Raffle Prizes and she also made $80.00 for the Rescue selling things she and her sister made for the night.  Thank you Sierra, great job!  And thank you Cadence for helping make those pretty bracelets.

Remember our sweet little Winnie?  She was one of the pups from the reserve that Brenda rescued along with her sister, two other pups, and a pregnant Eda, who had 7 pups but only four survived.  This is our little doll when we took her to her forever home.  We miss her so much but we are so happy that she is in a loving home with her new little girl Emily.  Here they are together, pals for life.  This makes all of the hard work worth it.