Pony Rides and Rambling 12/4/2013

I invite you to visit my pinterest to see all the beautiful rooms, gardens and eye candy I put on there. I now have 12,870 images and 10,030 followers. It really is quite delightful to visit there. I have absolutely nothing to gain by pinning or doing it, just the love of seeing gorgeous images and to dream. I just love looking at beautiful things as I'm very visual.
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As Alexandra Stoddard once stated in a pamphlet, "No one should deprive themselves of the joy of color because color choices, unlike most choices, aren't a matter of money. You are free to select the colors that put a smile on your face and edit out the rest. Living with refreshing, life-enhancing colors in your room, in the clothes you wear as well as the paraphernalia in your handbag and and the accessories on your desk can do wonders to your spirit. Color to me is one of the gifts of grace that is ours to select and a tool to help us live beautifully."
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My sweet little 3 1/2 year old great granddaughter is now doing something I taught her. When she meets someone, she is to shake their hand and say, "I'm dazzled to meet you." She picked that up real fast and people are astounded how well-mannered she is. That is NOT to say she's perfect because that little chick is a pip, trust me! She also was treated to a very nice surprise from a friend of mine who lives in Mt. Home, Idaho. She arranged for Caroline and Juliette (1 year old great granddaughter) to have a ride in a pony cart last week. Caroline loved it! She was in a cart that held 3 people and then she got to actually ride the pony. She had the most excited expression on her face and talked about it all night. When we got home Caroline told her mother: "I had a great adventure tonight, mummy."

A sweet red bathroom. It looks tiny but still has space for a cupboard. See what you can do with small spaces? They don't have to be ugly and frumpy. They can definitely be gorgeous.

I don't think there's anything more enticing than ice cream with cherries or strawberries on top. I remember years ago eating them at our local drug store in Norfolk, VA. and having a Coke with it. Those were definitely th' days: drug stores with counters for shakes and even sandwiches.

I just loved this entrance with the curving of the door, the mailbox right outside and a bench to sit on. Gorgeous.

Snow coming soon. I can't wait. I wish it would snow a lot this season. I love snow and it gives me an excuse to stay home and be a slug!

Cute potting room. Maybe it's part greenhouse also. Just look at all those vegetables.

You do know I love sparkly bottles, right? Well, this owner has outdone herself. Beautiful!

Love the lace garment with ribbon/fabric flowers decked across a French wicker chair.

One of many colorful buildings in a foreign country. Looks to be like Italy or France.

A stunning dining room.

And a stunning kitchen. I love a white kitchen. Have you seen the new ranges/ovens that you can put in 3 big cookie sheets? I just saw one the other day in Sunset magazine and lusted for a bit. Just a bit though. Because if I had it I'd have to cook/bake more and that ain't happening!

I could live with this little beauty, but at the moment I'm very happy with the little footstools I've made over with duck cloth. Plus I saved a lot of money doing what I did.

Hold me back!!!! I love chocolate on chocolate on chocolate.

This is one of the styles of furniture I love. Isn't it gorgeous?

This looks like it's cordoned off so I'm guessing it's a display somewhere. But it is beautiful and I'd love having it in my home.

Now, I have to admit that this little beauty and this setting would definitely entice me to go camping. I shan't mention it to Love Bunny or he just might try to go out and find one so I'll camp with him again. But this is a beautiful dinner setting for a trailer.

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Eating with the Family and Just A Thought

Recently during my break from blogging I gave some very, very serious thought about giving up my blog. It takes a lot of time for one thing but there were several other things I considered also. I don't have a great following like some do. But some who have thousands of followers are rather quite boring in my opinion, i.e. there are some who rarely blog even with several thousand bloggers and when they do it's maybe once a week or they don't give much thought to their blogs just posting the same "event" over and over and over each week without any thought as to the people reading it, or something like that. I truly don't waste my time following them and only occasionally look at their blogs when I'm at another blog and they recommend going to that blog for something interesting. But it's their blog and they can do with it as they wish and I'd never discourage that. Mine is probably boring to a lot of people also. Of course, there are those blogs that do nothing but whine about their lives. I've stopped reading those as I can't stand whiners. Your life is what you make it! Grow up.

I'm enjoying Pinterest and pinning there, so I thought I'd do that instead of blogging. It takes much less time to pin an image and since I've only been doing it for 6 months and have over 6,200 followers to see the 10,000 images I've already posted there and post several more each day that would be a lot easier to maintain as beautiful images are what I love the most as they are truly candy for my eyes. I'm very visual.

Then, as I was giving it a lot of thought on quitting blogging, I remembered that I love it. I miss it when I take a break. I enjoy reminiscing about things in my life and that hit me mostly because of my daughter's visit this past weekend and how we laughed and talked about some old memories, not many, but a few. Her hubby laughed at the dynamics of this family and just kept shaking his head. We're a very interesting family with a very interesting dynamic that intensifies when at least 2 of us are together. (Drives the hubbies to distraction but who cares.) I wish some of you could be around when that happens as you'd just stare at us in awe—look up the true meaning of that word; it isn't what most people think it is and use it inappropriately 90% of the time. (I learned that in 10th grade English class by a very wise teacher.) We yell at each other in a loving way. We're boisterous (look up that word also as it definitely applies to us in the proper way of using it). We are absolutely funny. But we're also a loving family although we don't exhibit it as much as some families. There was also an event that just about tore us apart, but it will be rectified in the coming days. But that's the way families are.

So my decision is to keep it up for as long as I feel it's appropriate for me. Yes, I absolute LOVE blogging and I sincerely hope I bring pleasure, a bit of humor and interesting family stories to all of you.
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A dinner with friends a while back brought up the subject of bars for eating, the counter top kind, I mean. They said that's where they eat all the time. I told them we took out the original bar in our house and had it walled in separating the kitchen from our living room. I wanted the extra wall space and don't like people entering our house to see into our kitchen, plus the smells of cooking permeate easier. I like it much better. They were abhorred at that. I told them that people sitting at a bar can't converse well and the stools would have been in our living room. Ain't happening in this house! How in the world can a family sit side-by-side like that when eating? Conversation would be stilted as you couldn't see the person unless you looked over the other person.

There was a General Conference talk years ago at our church about the decisions that are made in a family are generally made around the proverbial "kitchen table". What has happened to our families who eat in a straight line without chatting about the days activities across from each other? I just don't get that concept. I want my family around the old-fashioned kitchen table looking and talking to each other. I think the kitchen table is extremely important to our society.
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I love this tablecloth and think I'll make one someday. Adorable.

A stunning small living room made gorgeous with its colors.

This gentleman must love gardening...and he has his own well. Beautiful garden.

Susan Rios is absolutely my favorite artist. Her paintings appeal and speak to my heart. She's a kind person also and her granddaughter, Rosie, the subject of some of her paintings, is a U.S. Marine. Need I say more!

Loving the stripes and flowers together in this room.

An arbor we all wish we had. I could have one, but then the smell of territorial bloom of testosterone from hubby talking about how HE would make it for me would quench the desire quickly, and since he does enough for me, I don't have the heart to ask him to do this.

An ideal afternoon party with cool fruit, cakes and beverages in lovely bottles. I love beverages in glass bottles as they are colder than the one in cans.

A very clever way to store extra bath items.

A long stool in a gorgeous pattern provides extra seating without the cost of extra chairs.

All of my clothespins are decorated. I think this is washi tape, which is adorable on the clothespins.

Another gorgeous way to decorate a small dining area in a kitchen.

Gorgeous roses.

Another room typifying American cottage style.

A beautiful decanter.

This dramatic living room is actually very simple but packs a lot of pizzazz with only color. Gorgeous!

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Tidbit:
A homing pigeon became a star after completing a 3,321 mile journey across the Atlantic.
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Some Friends Returned from Zimbabwe

We had some friends who had recently returned from a mission in Zimbabwe over for dinner a few nights ago. He brought his computer with a slideshow of their mission for us to see. They loved their mission of 18 months, but said it was definitely time to come home. They did, however, go on a couple of safaris and loved that. They also dearly loved the people of that country. It was quite an experience though.

All the senior couple missionaries lived in a small area with tiny houses close together and were warned to not travel alone, to try and always travel with other couples. The doors and all the windows had bars on them with locks. They were told by their Mission President to be sure and keep them locked at all times unless coming or going. They also had their generator fenced and locked as it would have been stolen immediately. The car also was kept in a locked garage. They were told to never leave anything in the car, whether locked or unlocked. They didn't but one couple locked their computer in their car and it was stolen immediately. The country is very, very poor. Nothing like what we experience in this country. Even the poorest here have more than the poor over there. It's very sad, but they are a happy people in spite of it. They even told us of a village called Landfill People. Yep, it was in a garbage dump. People actually lived there in cardboard boxes right among the trash around them. It was certainly heart rending to see that kind of existence.

But two things happened that turned out to be miracles.

The first one was Thanksgiving and the senior missionary couples fixed dinner for about 100 young missionaries. They wanted to have gravy and someone made it in their home. When Connie (our friends are Connie and Paul) looked in the pot that was about 10-12" tall and not big around, she saw about a third of that pot was full. Well, there was no way that was going to feed 100 missionaries who wanted gravy on their turkey and mashed potatoes. Connie prayed quickly with a lot of hope. When all the missionaries and everyone else finished going through the buffet line, she looked into the pot and there were about 2 or 3 cups left! She said there was no way humanly possible for that to have happened. She was in shock. And all the diners partook of the gravy liberally!

Then another time they were to hand out 300 loaves of bread in the back of their truck to the people. When they saw the long, long line of people wanting bread, Connie told Paul there was no way they would be able to have enough bread for them all. She again agonized on what they would do. Another woman told her to just start handing them out to each person in line and when it was gone, it was gone. Nothing they could do. Again, she prayed. When the end of the line came, and it was a very long line estimated to be about 500, she looked in the back of the truck and there were 5 loaves of bread in there. She was astounded. I think I would have been also, but I do know prayer works.
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What can I say about this dining room? Gorgeous and perfect for the lovers of French style.

I just like the colors and style of the plates. Just a gorgeous setting.

I love this color of aqua or verdigris. Stunning.

A lively vignette with all kinds of color.

Another beautiful setting for an intimate dinner with friends.

This pretty house just struck me as very friendly with the lights glowing from within.

I don't think I've ever seen a chair like this but I'd sure love to find some.

The chairs at the table are exactly like mine with the chair covers over them. Of course, I do love that huge island and its magnificent color.

A cute bunch of flowers brought in from the garden.

While the headboard is very unusual, it still strikes a nice decorating note in this bedroom.

Such a teensy cute kitchen.

Lots of candy colors here.

If only I had this many chandeliers to hand in my windows!

Some beautiful handmade crafts. Darling!

I also display all my aprons in my kitchen. I actually use them also.

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Tidbit:

Opportunity is missed by most people because it comes dressed in overalls and looks like work.
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A Marvelous Book to Read

I read an excellent book recently called Unbroken, a book about the survival, resilience and redemption of the human soul. I recommend it highly.

It was about Louis Zamperini and his capture during WWII. Hubs asked me to buy it as he had heard about it, so I did. It was a marvelous book. He's a history and military buff and I caught him being very emotional while reading the book. He told me I should read it and I did. I was in tears a lot. Zamperini gave up going to the 1940 Olympics to join the Marines and go to fight for his country.

Louis gets shot down along with everyone else in the plane he was flying in at the beginning of the war. He and two others get into 2 lifeboats. One man eventually dies in the lifeboat but Louis and his friend spend 47 days in the Pacific Ocean and are finally caught by the Japanese and spent two and a half years in captivity under the merciless opposing forces. I couldn't and wouldn't go into all the details but I'd like to offer a few details to you.

Now, this was during the 1940s so men were a bit smaller in weight than they are now. Louis weighed about 155 lbs. when he got into that rubber raft. When he was captured he weighed 67 lbs. You'll have to read how they survived by reading the book. And he was beaten just about every single day for two and a half years. Once the man in charge of the prisoners, a sadistic man, named Watanabe, had every single POW in the camp, hit Louis in the face as hard as they could. If Watanabe didn't think they hit him hard enough, he made them hit him again—hard—in the face. The soldiers kept count and they figure Louis was hit 220 times in the face in just that one day. He wasn't even recognizable.

But at the end of the war, Louis committed himself to the Lord through Billy Graham and tried to find the man to tell him he—Louis—had forgiven him. The man was contacted but refused to see Louis. It was an amazing book of courage, resilience, tragedy and forgiveness in this man's life. I recommend it highly, just to see how our POWs were treated and going against the Geneva Convention and killing them with all kinds of tortures and humiliating them by making them even eat the excrement of the animals. It is a powerful story and an absolutely astounding account of how they survived.
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Beautiful sunset plus I love bougainvillea and its fuchsia flowers. In Mexico, they put some on your bed at night along with chocolate of course.

Another living room I like. I've always been leery of putting shelves over a chair or sofa because of falling objects. I think this comes from the earthquakes we had in California and in Hawaii when we lived there.

A beautiful view from a living room is something I've always enjoyed. We can see our roses out front but with our large porch, not much else.

I love the pink plates under that lovely pitcher.

Okay, just how many people would want a bed around their swimming pool. It would be humid and smell like chlorine, but it sure makes for a pretty photo shoot.

This looks to be in a European country, but the verdigris faucet and that lovely handle would thrill me if I had it in my backyard.

Another beautiful porch with wispy sheer curtains blowing. What a lovely porch!

This looks to be some kind of resort as not many people could afford to do this to their yards. But wouldn't it be wonderful to visit this place?

I love the little cabinet and all the cute things she has put on its shelves.

A darling clutch purse.

While I love the color and the curtains, I'm not sure I'd want to live in a three-story house. No one could steal your laundry though. Prettily done however.

All kinds of fabric and ribbons.

My favorite pink colors in the fabrics and on the hydrangeas.

I'd take that gorgeous chair!

Yeah, yeah, a gorgeous hanging bed, but I'd be afraid hubby and I would come crashing down at some point. ;-)

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Tidbit:

James Dyson has invented a vacuum cleaner that can order its own spare parts.
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