A comparison to last year....

This is last years bid for a Merry Christmas...needless to say, it was a beautiful one and I was thrilled with the new direction that I felt I was going into. I was a country girl from WAY back and still love some elements of it... however, a friend got me hooked into the sparkly side of life and here we are with the hybrid country/chic Christmas we see here now... !
This is last years idea of the hybrid... I am in the decorating mode again this year and will post new pics on here as per my camera being full and needing to expel all pics... that does take a bit, you know...!
I am going ahead with the same idea for this year... will have new ornies to show off and a new location of the tree but otherwise, I will see if I can make this a different yet similiar holiday look...

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you know, you find something fun to put on your blog and it doesnt' come through.... how annoying!
anyhow,I will try again...

Summer and Storms...

We have been besieged by summer storms this year... I am sure that everyone knows about Big Valley Jamoboree... this is a picture of that particular storm from another part of the province... big storms... and yet, they are sure pretty...just get past the dangers and the death and the destruction and you get pretty! :)

and more... man I love these homes!

*and more!!! I know that there are two pics of the last house but you have to see how big this 'modest' home is! It is actually huge...and built in 1895... it was one of the original homes built in this neighborhood and undoubtedly, was one of the babies... the others truly are monsters in comparison.. yet, this one has charm and a sweet hominess that the others dont' quite pull off. They are gorgeous, to be sure, but in reality, when it comes to 'home', I think this one actually seems more like our image in our heads. Mind you, if there was a choice between this one and the other larger more austere ones, well... yah, I would be tempted to go big!

A Trip into the Past

*these lovely ones are from a recent trip to Sioux Falls South Dakota... they are absolutely breathtaking and I really was upset to find that I had missed the open houses down there by a week..YES, they let you walk through these old girls and see how beautiful they are inside and out... and IMISSED it. SO not fair. I figured that if I had gone 23+hours down there to see them, that , REALLY, they should just let me see the inside when I got there, open house or not.... apparently they did not feel the same way. And no, I didn't go door to door begging to see the insides of these pieces of history....though perhaps I should have...instead I simply looked and clicked away with my trusty camera...and had to leave unfulfilled .... :(

a photo or two....

~bits of vintage past..I look at these pictures and I can't imagine living in a dress that big and heavy when it is so hot and muggy outside...and no ice, or refrigeration? I am in awe that humans made it through that kind of torture!~

I am, however, envious that these ladies knew what fine linen was...fine silk and lace...hand tatted edgings and tiny stitches... I wish that we had that kind of workmanship now and that it was the norm, as opposed to the usual awkward stitching and substandard work that we buy daily... How wonderful to have a trousseau and to be taught these arts by rote..nothing out of the ordinary; simply what a woman needs to know to create beauty around her ....~

This week in Spring!

And this is this week! I am thrilled to see new life coming out of my garden! I have been putting a lot of perennials in the front beds these last couple of years and now they are sprucing the place up with little or no effort from me... a couple of annuals, as I love my snapdragons!, and my front beds are full and ready to delight the eye for another year! now... on to the back yard...argh!

Wintery Spring!

this was last weekend...yes the long weekend here was covered in snow and frost...Mother Natures way of saying that it is all up to her... not us!

Teddy Bears Easter!

A little fun I had over Easter...loved the teddy bear from my shopping trip with Margaret... and the planter was gorgeous... truly fab! so I thought it would look good together!

I do like the way the colours worked out though... very warm and inviting!

Summer field trips...looking forward!

This arrangement was not, I repeat, NOT done by me...it was done by the very talented set artists at Fort Edmonton...but I thought it was gorgeous... a wonderful way to show the old and the new...soft colours and a nostalgic pieces... one fo the reasons I love going down there...besides the fact that every year we go, it is STINKING hot and there is no where near enough water to quench the thirst...thank goodness there is a copious amount of ice cream at the old fashioned ice cream shoppe to cool one down until they find the next window that makes one wonder how they did it back then!

I am obviously looking forward to my summer and all the 'field trips' we are always taking...I have a great friend to go with and we have a lot of fun traipsing about with her kids to all kinds of neat places....

This next summer, I will be helping a different friend with a new shop in Vilna Alberta...a sweet little country store in lake country...so look forward to those pics too!

the dream house...

This one is also enviable...can't you imagine having drinks on the front porch and reading a good book in the twilight? Lightning bugs floating around and the sounds of kids playing for all they are worth to take advantage of the final minutes of sunlight before heading home to bed...The green grass is so lush and emerald..you dont' think you could even step in it! Mind you, if you can afford the house, I am sure you can also afford the lawn guy who makes it look this good!!

This house is in the historical district of Sioux Falls South Dakota is really a gorgeous piece of archetecture.... I would love this house!!!I don't think I could handle the taxes though!

Spring!

How lovely to have tulips again! These beauties are not courtesy of my yard however...no no...way too early for OUR tulips to be blooming!

These are from my parents, otherwise known as the Parental Units, and were a thankyou for staying here for the last two weeks! They were a real surprise! It has been a long time since I had tulips in the house!

So, take care Parental Units, hope you have a lovely drive home...all 24 hours of it! Can you even imagine??? and all of it just by my two somewhat elderly but young at heart parents....

But I get to stay here and enjoy my flowers and the first vestiges of spring... how wonderful to feel warmth outside and to see green grass starting to sprout...( along with many and varied weeds...sheesh!) I will have to make sure to make note of when MY tulips actually come out for a look-see...seems to be later and later every year...time to move somewhere warmer, I am thinking!

No, she didn't try suicide.... apparently cutting ones wrists aren't the most easy way to get away from a bad haircut!!!

But really, our girl is hopped up on more morphine here than most addicts could take... !~Lucy in the sky?~ :P

She climbed onto the bed and managed to snag a thread in her claw, at which point she decided to make a flying leap across the bed, without the claw, of course, and screamed bloody murder..

Yes, how to stop your owners heart quickly! especially with blood everywhere..I had no clue what had happened! so off to the vet we go...the emergency vet of course, as Willow is a champagne puppy and insists on going to the after hours clinic for her work... after three hours and one gut clenching yelp, the remaining claw was cut off, a bright pink stretch band-aid was applied, LOTS of happy drugs and anti- bacterials applied, and we are conked out on the couch....a sad diva, with a bad hair cut, a broke mama, and a really great case of whoopy whoo-hoos! yeah, dude...feel the love!

So this is the first attack on Willows hair... yes, it looks like crap. I understand this. I am sure that even Willow understands this! Here she is waiting so patiently for a treat as she will be STUCK like this for a wee bit... yes, the clippers were dead. I KNOW...again, yes,buy the puppy clippers not the human clippers!!! So you can see how this worked out so incredibly well, no???she looks horrible!!! However, I have been blessed with a particularly non-egotistical pup...she really couldn't give a hot crap just as long as her ball is being thrown and treats are always in the offing....

So we continue...the poor thing...someone will rescue you!

And now, you can see how she is taking out her frustrations! who needs this toy in one piece?? and really,aren't they more fun with tonnes of stuffing all over the floor???? so Mom can pick it up? or just plain clog the vaccum? oh the joy we have!

SO I thought to myself... well, it is Spring and the dog is looking a bit scruffy.. I could, A. take her to the groomer and pay out 50.00+ for them to shave her senseless, or B. go ahead and buy the razor and be a wee bit Scottish, and do it myself. Folks, let me tell you. When others say to you, no no, you CAN do this yourself! do take another look at your own abilities and understand that for some this is easy...for others, (like myself) not so much.
ALSO, when they say, no no, go ahead and buy the man clippers instead of the dog clippers...DON'T listen!!! the man clippers are made for the average man who has a nice wavy bit of follicle action. They are NOT for the average DOG with a double coat. Apparently. NOT .

Pics to follow.... no really, you do not want to miss why I am now on the I HATE MY OWNER canine list worldwide.... I expect hate mail to be soon forthcoming.

This was Christmas...with snow STILL on the ground, it is hard to say that Spring is here...so , an homage to Christmas.. :)

I have begun!

This is the beginning! I have been bullied and beaten into starting a blog and this is the birth of all of that abuse! No really, it has been a long time in coming and thank goodness, I got my poop in a group and here we are now!

I am SO excited to be on here now! I think that now that I have started doing this, that maybe this is the way of my future... the whole world reading about my life with a little pictoral directory to illustrate my clumsy attempts at on-line journalling... SO, thanks for having me aboard Blogger and here goes!