Skywatch Friday

A picture outside my house in South Florida.Be sure to visit all of the other Skywatchers at www.skyley.blogspot.com to catch a glimpse of some truly outstanding photo's of the sky all around this great big beautiful world of ours.

Happy Skywatch Friday everyone. Hope you all have a wonderful weekend.
Until we meet again . . .

Thankful Thursday

Today I am thankful for Tara Frey from Bella Pink Cafe for all the lovely articles she wrote in Romantic Homes magazine which introduced me to the world of blogging. Yes, I've probably been living under a cozy, contented rock - having known barely anything about blogging. This is a whole new world that I LOVE!!! I've met so many nice people and I feel I am expanding my creativity in another outlet. I have gained numerous ideas from fellow bloggers. I have introduced several others to blogging and it has proven to be a wonderful means of recognition for many. Anything we do that can bring joy to others, or increased confidence to oneself, as Martha would say, "it's a good thing". Thank you all for the wonderful comments you leave for your fellow bloggers. It makes my day and I'm sure it makes yours as well. Happy Thursday to each and every one of you. Take a moment to express your gratitude as well on this Thankful Thursday. Special thanks to Rhondi from Rose Colored Glasses for hosting this thoughtful event. (http://www.rhondisrosecoloredglasses.blogspot.com/)

I LOVE BLOGGING AND BLOGGING LOVES ME!!

My Favorite Banana Bread

Have you ever tried the Bisquick Banana Bread recipe? It is yummy!!! When visiting New Jersey last Christmas, my dear friend, Peggy, served this bread and I just had to have the recipe. I've tried several different Banana Bread recipes and this has got to be the easiest, light and fluffiest and tastiest!!

Bisquick Banana Bread

2 large banana's, mashed

2/3 cup sugar

1/4 c. milk

3 Tbl vegetable oil

1/2 tsp vanilla

3 eggs

2-2/3 c. Bisquick

1/2 c. nuts (if desired, but I omit)

Heat oven to 350. Grease 9x5x3 loaf pan. In large bowl, mix all ingredients except Bisquick and nuts. Stir until blended. Stir in Bisquick and nuts. Pour into pan. Bake 50-60 minutes, or until toothpick inserted is removed clean. Cool completely on wire rack.

If you have some ripe banana's that you want to use up, and you feel like making something tasty and simple, try this recipe. I'm sure you will love it!! It's a hit at my house. Thanks Peg!!

My Sanctuary

I recently half redid my bedroom. I love the way it looks and wanted to share a couple of pictures. I say "half" redid my room because I really need to remove the wallpaper and paint and just cannot bring myself to do it. I am not the greatest at removing wallpaper as I tend to gouge the walls in my impatience. Certainly not a virtue, I assure you.

My mother and I picked up this quilt, oh probably three years ago. I had it packed away and actually forgot about it until I was cleaning out a closet this past weekend and came across it. I washed it up, because I hate bed linens right out of the packaging. I did not have matching shams for the quilt, so I picked up some solid cream shams at Home Goods on Sunday.

Now I Lay Me Down To Sleep

My Blogging CornerMy Dresser - part of which was shown in "Our Favorite Things" postMy Lingerie Chest and the Pitcher & Bowl I made in Ceramics class in 1983!!!Where I Sit in the Morning to Do Make-up and Jewelry My Snowbabies CollectionThe Books I LoveSilhouettes of my parents and my children (ignore the hangers hanging haphazardly)The slider to my balcony - a cozy place to sit and read - and another jewelry manequinThe pillow Hope, Whitney and Arielle brought me from Chinatown in California For any of you that read my daughters blog, - Rachel's Picture Perfect, you heard how we went school clothes shopping at Urban Outfitters. Rachel was the ecstatic recipient of 8 new tops, and if you've seen their prices, you'd be ecstatic too. Had to get myself something from Urban as well, right? I just love this pillow and it looks so pretty on the new quilt on my bed, along with my Chinatown pillow above.

So that's my space. I love the way it looks and am quite sure it will look even better when I finally take care of that wallpaper and paint that is in such desperate need of renewal. It makes me feel peaceful when I enter and that is a wonderful way to feel at any time of day.

Our Favorite Things

Cindy from My Romantic Home is hosting "Our Favorite Things" weekend and I had to join. I read about this fun event at work today and couldn't wait to come home and take a photograph of my dresser in my bedroom. I just rearranged it and I just love the way it looks. The dresser runner I purchased from Rhondi at Rose Colored Glasses. I originally had it on my dining room table, but I like it so much better on my dresser. The jewelry holder was a gift from my daughter, Rachel, for my birthday. I thought it looked so pretty with the pearls on it. I get such a peaceful, contented feeling when I go into my room and I just love the way it makes me feel.

I am playing around with new photo software and found this pretty pink lace frame. I thought it was perfect for this picture. Be sure to check out all of the others that have joined in this fun weekend event. I hope I posted the link to Cindy's blog accurately (which I highly doubt:), so here it is, just in case. www.romantichome.blogspot.com. Thanks Cindy!!

SkyWatch Friday

I had so much fun participating in SkyWatch Friday for the first time last week. It was great looking at all of the beautiful blogs and the fantastic pictures people chose to share. This is such a wonderful concept and I am so pleased to be a part of it. There are two pictures I would like to share this week. The first one was taken earlier this evening outside of my friends home. I love palm trees and I just love the way they look against the beautiful evening sky.

Let your imagination soar. Can you see the dragon in the clouds of this next picture? He looks pretty intense to me!!

Happy SkyWatch Friday! Thank you for visiting and I hope you enjoyed! Until we meet again . . .

New Blog Layout

How do you like my new layout? I really loved my old one - the taupe background with the bouquet of red roses. I wanted a three column blog and my daughter found this one for me. We think it looks nice and light and airy for this time of year. I'm not thinking that I want to change the look for the seasons, but I really wanted three columns and couldn't figure out how to do it without changing the whole thing. The worst part of this change was that I lost all my links and had to re-enter lots of info and I know I haven't added everything.

I really love blogging and I find it very interesting to read different things that people write. You can really get an idea of personalities by reading these blogs and there are a few people that I would choose as friends, if ever that opportunity presented itself. I have gotten so many wonderful ideas from the blogs I've read and I guess it's okay to use some of those idea's, isn't it? I love all the pictures and captions in some of the sidebars I've seen. I love the music. I love the lists. One could really spend a lot of time blogging. I feel I do not spend enough time, but I enjoy the time I spend.

What thrills me is that my enthusiasm for blogging has inspired others to take up this hobby as well. I welcome my daughter, Rachel, who has surpassed me by far, my Goddaughter, Whitney, who is leaving us for college very soon, and my dear friend, Karen, who also grew up in NJ and transplanted herself to East Florida as I have. Karen's daughter, Cassandra, may be starting a blog soon, and Whitney's friend, Jessica, has also hopped on board. It is such fun and it just adds to the blogs that I must check out frequently.

I truly enjoy my blogging time and getting to know new people and places, just like Lacie and Katie, as shown here. Thanks for your acquaintance and may we have many memorable times to come!!

Skywatch Friday

Decided I had to get on this beautiful bandwagon and join Skywatch Friday. I found the site a few weeks ago and told my daughter, Rachel. She has been posting pictures for the past three weeks and getting incredible hits and comments and I'm jealous. She is a much better photographer than I am, but she had to get some of her talent from me, I'm thinking:). So, here is my first Skywatch entry. We went to Naples on the west coast of Florida last week. We had an incredible time and had to hustle off the beach as there was a huge, typical Florida summer afternoon storm moving in quickly. Skywatch Friday has definitely made me much more aware of the beauty of the sky and I hope to improve as the weeks progress. If you happen upon my post here, I do thank you for stopping by and hope to share a moment with you again . . .

Where On Earth Have I Been???

I cannot believe I have not posted in 11 whole days!! What have I been doing? Where have I been? My goodness! What kind of blogger am I?

I have been on vacation!! I took a stay-at-home vacation so I could leisurely do the things I chose to do at the time I chose to do them. What a novel concept!! I thoroughly enjoyed myself and I cannot even begin to express my contentment. I did have a birthday last week - Wednesday to be exact. We took a ride to Naples and had a most enjoyable day. Naples is a beautiful place to be. I just love it there! It was a great day! Florida does have some of the best storms, as you will see in the second picture. We had to run between the lightening bolts. It was rather exciting!! :)

And what kind of blogger am I anyway? Not a very good one, one can see. I really envy and admire those that post regularly. I get so involved in so many other things, then it gets late and I put it off until another day. No one will ever read my blog regularly if I do not post regularly. So, if anyone is out there, please check back. I'll do better. I really do love blogging!!

The Good, The Bad, The Beautiful

Today started with chocolate chip pancakes for me and my daughter, Rachel, with her initials in the pancake. Yum! She loved it. It was a great way to start the day!!

My mother-in-law and I went browsing through Home Goods later in the day and you will never guess what I bought!!!!!! A runner!!! Like I really need one! But this one is so pretty and like no other runner I have. It's blue!!! I have no blue in my house, well, barely any blue. Check this out! Isn't it a whole different look? I just love it!!!

My mother-in-law is a very sweet person and I am happy we share the relationship we do. My biggest gripe with her, though, is that she never wants me to buy her anything for her birthday, Christmas or Mother's Day. I could not imagine not getting her something for those special days and since I am close to her, I know what she likes. Lately I have really been finding great things for her that I have been so excited to give her. For this past Christmas, I found a beautiful tapestry wall hanging. Isn't it great?

I thought is was just beautiful and I was so excited to give it to her. She really seemed to like it, though she felt the colors were better for my home, rather than hers. She couldn't wait to hang it. Days passed. Weeks passed. Months passed. The wall hanging was never hung. I just knew what was coming and sure enough, I was right. Today she gave it back to me because she felt it was better for my house. I cannot tell you how many gifts she has given back to me. When it first happened, I was so very insulted and hurt. When she gave my daughter back something she had selected for her grandma, that pretty much took the cake for me. I think I will not try to find the perfect gift any longer. Does that sound horrible?

On the bright side, though, and yes, there is a bright side. Doesn't this tapestry look just lovely in my living room?

Yes, I love it! And the colors are great!!! Even though my mother-in-law doesn't like anything I get for her, she has done a really wonderful thing for me that I will treasure all the days of my life. I found a really cute Mary Englebreit puzzle at Target, oh, probably last year some time. I have zippo patience for puzzles, so I asked my mother-in-law if she wanted to put it together for me because she loves puzzles. She has the space to put it in a seldom utilized room, so she can leave it out and come back to it often to put a few pieces in here and there. Well, mywonderful mother-in-law just finished it and presented it to me with such pride. I am thrilled!!!! I just love it!!!!

It's not the greatest picture as there is a glare, but it was worse without the flash. I'm still trying to perfect my picture-taking abilities. So, that was my day. Not bad!! I enjoyed it. Oh, and since I had to move something to hang the tapestry - though it is just temporarily hung, as it came with a beautiful rod for hanging that I'm hesitant to secure. I am one of those rearrangers, so I don't think I should secure this rod and then move things around in the Fall and have huge holes I'd have to fix. Yuck!!

So, as I just said, since I had to move something to hang the tapestry, had to share a picture of the inside of my front door with the heart-shaped wreath that relocated for the sake of the tapestry. Tough break, but someone had to do it and the wreath will be such a pretty thing to look at whenever I walk out my front door.

I had fun writing this post today and sharing all of these pictures. I have a really hard time making my post look pretty as it always posts as a big, paragraph-less blob. I am a stickler for being grammatically correct, so I hate lacking paragraphs where paragraphs should be.
When I preview the post before publishing it, it looks great, but when it publishes - yuck!!! I hope today's turns out okay. Oh me and my idiosyncrasies - we all have em!!! Some are good. Some are bad. And some . . . like a certain tapestry and a certain Mary Englebreit puzzle - are just beautiful!!!!!

There's No Place Like Home

I wasn't happy with the picture I took yesterday of my dining room table with my great Marshall's find and the beautiful runner I bought from Rhondi at Rose Colored Glasses. So, I took a better picture and wanted to share.





The runner really looks very pretty on the dark wood. I see so many beautiful pictures of fellow bloggers homes and all of the white, which looks so pretty, light and airy. I used to have floral furniture in my living room with light pine tables and crystal lamps. I really loved the look and was hesitant to get rid of it, but we put hardwood floors in our living/dining room area and I just wanted to get a totally different look. So I decided to have a total transformation and go with the dark furniture and rich colors.




My bedroom is the romantic cottage style and I love it there. It is such a peaceful place to rest my weary bones after a long day and it is just a beautiful place to wake up in. I will have to share pictures of it soon. I am a great furniture rearranger and have decided upon my new room set-up and want to rearrange before I post pictures. I am on vacation next week and plan to do some moving and shaking then, so hopefully the pictures will follow.




Happy 4th of July to everyone! This is a favorite time of year for me. My birthday is next week and I always go on vacation at this time of year. I don't plan on going away for this vacation, but rather some day trips. I am super excited to go to Mount Dora in central Florida. Many have told me about the quaint shops and I just cannot wait to investigate! I'm also planning on a little jaunt to the Florida Keys, which is always fun. I am really looking forward to spending some time at home too, because I love it and after all, there's no place like home.

Happy family times during this holiday season - fun barbeques, fantastic fireworks and memorable moments with those we hold dear.


Joyce

I Won! I Won! I Won! Yippee!!!!!

I am the lucky recipient of Glenda's (Many Fond Memories) 100th post giveaway!!! I am just thrilled! I am new to this blogging world and I am so totally addicted - probably more addicted to reading about what everyone does than posting myself, but I am trying to be better about it.




My daughter, Rachel, also started a blog and she is doing so great with it - I am so impressed. I would love for you to stop by her blog at http://www.rachelspictureperfect.blogspot.com/. She posts a picture every day and even posted for Sky Watch Friday last week and she received the most comments ever on that post. I get so inspired with what everyone does with their blog and I just think this is so much fun!! The creativity is amazing. I like to think of myself as a creative person. Blogging is a new way to blossom - I hope!!



I wanted to share with you my lucky find at Marshall's last week. This beautiful centerpiece was only $5!!!! It has a small chip on the rim, but you can only see it if you are really looking for it. Isn't the lace runner just beautiful? I purchased the runner from Rhondi at Rose Colored Glasses. I LOVE the way it looks on my table. Thank you Rhondi!!

About a week and a half ago I had a found a beautiful runner at the Palm Beach Goodwill store.

I am really into runners. I really want to do a post soon with the different runners I have and how they can so change the look of your table. This most recent runner (aside from the beautiful lace runner from Rhondi), is not long enough for my dining room table, but I think it looks great on the server in my dining room. I am so pleased with it. What do you think?

Has anyone read The Last Lecture? I just bought it and am anxious to read it. I love books like that. Check it out if you haven't seen it yet. It's the actual last lecture of Randy Pausch, a professor at Carnegie Mellon. He has terminal cancer and wrote this lecture not only for his students, but for his children, as well as himself. I've only read the first chapter so far, but it is wonderful!

Hope everyone has a wonderful day!

Joyce