Creating ~ In the kitchen

I have a super sweet blessing ~ my husband works close enough that he can come home for lunch!  I do love that!

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Yesterday morning I saw this recipe for Skillet Bread and decided to make it for lunch.  It makes a lovely presentation right in the pan!  There is no kneading so it is simple too!  I  pulled out a jar of applesauce that I had frozen back in the summer and we had that along with some homemade soup.  I loved this noon time meal!

The deliciousness of a simple home-baked bread!♥

I think I have been slack in planning out for a little specialness for lunch time ~ and this little bit of “kitchen creating” has encouraged me to be more diligent in this!♥

Blessings on your day!

Create

One thing I want to be more intentional about this year is creating.  When I first started thinking about this, it was mostly the idea of actually “making” things.  But the more I pondered this, I realized that I really want to “create” in other ways too.  This is in no way to be a burden, but to have joy in creating in many different areas.

These are some of the things I’ve been thinking of so far:

Create:

♥Pretty mail  ~ letters & cards & notes of encouragement

♥Gift tags

♥Nourishing meals

♥Healthy treats

♥Pretty gardens  ~flowers & edibles

♥Flower bouquets

♥Handmade gifts

♥Useful household items ~ candles, soap, knitted washcloths, pillowcases

♥Order & space ~ declutterring

♥Memories

♥Joy

♥Deeper relationships

♥Coziness

♥Comfort

♥Simplicity

I’m definitely looking forward to a year of creating!   How about you, do you have any creative inspiration to share?

♥Blessings♥

These winter days

These have been wonderfully quiet, pondering & thinking kind of days.  These winter days after the activity of the holiday season and before the days of spring.

It is a fresh new year!

 Always at this time I am looking forward to spring.  I know it will not be far off.  But for now I will bring a little spring inside.

Primroses are out now…a sure sign for me that spring will be coming!

These are the geranium cuttings I took back in the fall and set in water to root.

Success!

They all rooted and now have been planted in soil.   I am so excited about this!  There have even been some blossoms!  In the spring I can plant them into one of the outside window boxes.  I love the frugality and satisfaction of this!  This fall maybe I will do more.

Enjoying the evening with some candlelight.  Bill cut me a piece of branch from a limb that came down in a windstorm and I am using it as a little base for the candle…the rustic simplicity makes me smile.  Now it is all drippy with wax and adds even more charm.

I found  some beeswax tarts in a favorite little shop, and you should smell them!  The fresh honey smell is just delightful!  They are a new favorite, and they were so inexpensive!

Reading by the fire!  This is has become one of my favorite winter activities.  We don’t have any small children to read to, but a couple years ago Bill and I started reading aloud to each other on winter evenings.   It allows for a slowing and settling in for the evening.  What a joy it is to read a good book together this way.

With this new year I hope it brings joy and fresh hope to you!  It is a new opportunity for us to do His will.

Sweet blessings friends!

A thought

What are the far-reaching possibilities if every day God’s people hear His voice and respond?

Simple beauty

Simple ♥ Things

Nothing fancy here ~ but they bring color.beauty.joy

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Surround yourself with things of beauty ~ however simple they may be

Colorful projects

Garden color

A simple pumpkin ~ later to be made into a pie for my pumpkin pie loving husband

Drying Calendula

Lovely green Geranium cuttings

When it was time to clean out the windowboxes for the season, I took some cuttings ~ so hopefully I’ll have some new plants for color next spring!

Hot tea on chilly fall mornings

I’m enjoying my thrifted treasures!

What simple touches of beauty are filling your heart with joy today?

Settling in

It’s that time of year again…for settling in!

~ For cozy days~

Not long ago I found this cute chunky teapot at the thrift store.

I love it…it is perfect for fall~ homey day~ tea!

There are still some snippets of summer days here too.

Some cheerful flowers to brighten the view from my kitchen window~

Oh, how I love sunflowers♥

And calendula♥

~for it’s cheerful beauty and usefulness~

This flower now takes up a whole quarter of my cutting garden and has become one of my favorite flowers!

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Hoping your weekend is cozy and blessed!

The beauty of home living

♥The simple pleasures and beauty of home living♥

~Garden joy~

~Creating~

Homemade Rosemary Mint Shaving Cream

And Calendula Salve

~Deliciousness~

Blueberries

Tomatoes

Zucchini

Garden Phlox

~Backyard contentment~

~Outdoor fun ~

Bocce ball

~Homemade goodness~

Pizza on my cast iron pizza pan.  I ♥love♥ this pan…it is one of my kitchen favorites!

~Sweet treats~

What beauty are you enjoying around your home?

Summer greetings

Hello there!

So much time has passed since my last post!  What a beautiful summer we are having!

I thought I would share a little bit of garden beauty since we lasted visited.  These flowers were such a joy as I looked out my kitchen window.

Lupine!   A new flower to love!

Abbie planted these in the cutting garden last year and this was our first season for flowers.  I think they are so majestic looking.  They have finished blooming now and I am missing their splendor, but now some of the phlox is blooming and they are tall and beautiful too.

Today we visited a local rummage sale on the way to the Farmer’s Market.  It is a huge sale with lots of things to look at…and good prices!  In the housewares section I found this jar with the wire clasp and the small vase, both of which didn’t have prices marked on them.  I was thinking of just getting those two items.  When Bill took them up to be priced, the lady put them in a gallon ziplock bag and said that we could put as much as we could fit in the bag for $3.  If we didn’t find anything else we wanted, she said to come back and she would reprice it.

While he was waiting in line…such a good guy! :), I was browsing around!

I was so excited to find this egg beater!  I love it and it is in perfect condition!  So into the bag it went along some other things!  We even tried it out tonight making some whip cream and it whipped it up wonderfully!

A cheese slicer and pie server with a matching little fork were some of my finds

Along with an extra whisk which will come in handy, and this wonderful set of salad tongs.  The tongs are small,  yet heavy duty and so easy to use.  And I didn’t have a pair!

All of this fit into the bag along with another little bottle and the little cruet at the top which I thought would be cute to use as another flower vase!  This was so fun!  It was so nice to find such useful items!

It was a beautiful morning at the market.  When we first got there the sun was shining and there was a nice gentle breeze which made it so pleasant.  Going to the market is one of the blessings of summer.

I hope you are enjoying some simple blessings of this wonderful season too!

Blessings,

Sharon

Doing vs. spending time being

“Be still, and know that I am God”  Ps. 46:10

This morning I was pondering about how it seems like I am always “just doing”…doing this or that thing, doing the next thing, doing things on the “to do list”.  Not that it is bad to accomplish things, but I just seem to be more “doing” ~ instead of “just being”.

♥Just being still

♥Just being in His presence

♥Just being more thoughtful of who He wants me to be and what He wants me to do

♥Just being His

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Sounds a bit like Mary and Martha, don’t you think?

There will always be things on the “to-do” list, places to go, things to do; but may all of “my doing” come forth from my first “just being”.

“Grace unto you, and peace, be multiplied”

Have a lovely day!♥

May beauty

What a treat to have in the garden and to bring inside!

Happy May!