Just Sayin  :)

Hugs From My Heart

Sliding Board Fracture Prevention with Dr. Ed Holt, Anne Arundel Medical...

Never thought... Good info.

Hugs From My Heart

New Favorite Blog...

Just found a beautiful, inspiring, real blog this morning...

This is a woman who has been through so much, and has seen God's faithfulness every step of the way.

These are photos of her "studio". Her husband encouraged her to get her own space.

LOVE THAT!!! Sounds so much like Blue Eyes.  A husband that really knows his wife.

 Her style is so calming.  AND WHITE!!!  You know how much I love white!!!

 Skip on over to her blog, Simple Thoughts

 Read her story. Be encouraged. I sure was.

 Hugs From My Heart

Cat On A Hot Tin Roof

Just watched this for the very first time... learned so much.

Hugs From My Heart

So Getting This Today!!! How Could I Have Missed It?!!!

Hugs From My Heart

Happy Hump Day

Hugs From My Grateful Heart

Just Finished Season 1 & 2

I finally did it. I watched Downton Abbey. I had read about it. Heard about it. Seen them on talk shows. Finally, I watched it for myself, and boy, am I hooked!!!

If you haven't already, take a day. Get into your comfy p.j.'s. Order pizza or Chinese. Or better yet, make some Mac & Cheese. Shut off your cell. Don't answer the front door... and enjoy.

Hugs From My Downton Abbey Loving Heart

An Apple A Day...

This is a more modern version...

of the old saying

an apple a day.

Easier to keep track I suppose.

Found here...  Service Plan

Hugs From My Heart

 

Some days... you just have to keep this in mind.

 Enjoy your Saturday.

 Hugs From My Heart

Make It Count

"In the end it's not the years in your life that count. It's the life in your years."
    Abraham Lincoln

 Hugs From My Heart

Bo Bartlett

About Bo

"Bo Bartlett is an American realist with a modernist vision. His paintings are well within the tradition of American realism as defined by artists such as Thomas Eakins and Andrew Wyeth. Like these artists, Bartlett looks at America’s heart—its land and its people—and describes the beauty he finds in everyday life. His paintings celebrate the underlying epic nature of the commonplace and the personal significance of the extraordinary.

"Bartlett was educated at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, where realist principles must be grasped before modernist ventures are encouraged. He pushes the boundaries of the realist tradition with his multilayered imagery. Life, death, passage, memory, and confrontation coexist easily in his world. Family and friends are the cast of characters that appear in his dreamlike narrative works. Although the scenes are set around his childhood home in Georgia, his island summer home in Maine, his home in Pennsylvania or the surroundings of his studio and residence in Washington state, they represent a deeper, mythical concept of the archetypal, universal home."

– Tom Butler, excerpt from the book Bo Bartlett, Heartland

I am so all over the place with blogs, tumblr and such that I sometimes come across the most amazing artists.  Bo Bartlett is one of them.


 Click the link below.  Enjoy his work.  I certainly am.

Bo Bartlett

Hugs From My Heart

It is a beautiful Sunday morning here in Maine. The sun is out. The air is warm. The birds are singing...

My coffee is tasting so good.

Years ago, just at the brink of my kids being to old to be read to by their mum, I got one more book in.  It was seriously one of my very favorites.  

Like most stay at home mums, I read to our peeps all the time.  While they sat all cozy by the wood stove in the dead of a cold Maine winter.  Playing Lego's at the kitchen table.  We would get huge stacks of books from our local library each time we visited.  So much, that we had a hard time carrying them to the van.

I say all of that to say... last night when Blue Eyes and I were having dinner at the farm with friends we will be renting from, the conversation got to talking about the goat they use to have, and how much they all loved it, it's sweet personality, and the frequent trips it made into the house, alongside the dogs.  :)

Bonnie was telling me how a kind lady took the time to show her how to care for this goat.  How to milk it, and benefit from what it produced.  Being on a farm, having a full time job/business to run with her husband... she just didn't have time for one more thing to care for.  So they found another home for it.  Then everyone at the table said,  (almost in unison),

 "You could have a goat and take care of it if you wanted!!!"

I remembered this book.  The Goat Lady.  How I loved that book.  If you haven't read it too your peeps... if your not familiar with Jane Bregoli's work... PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE... go to a book store, library, or look online.  But get this book into your hands.  I am certain it will be an instant favorite in your home library like it was with ours.

I'm getting another copy just to have out to read to those sweeties I know will be coming to the farm we will be blessed to live at.

Here is a summary and revue...

Children's Literature

A family moves into their new home. All the houses in the neighborhood except for one have new paint and well-kept lawns. One old farmhouse sticks out with peeling paint, rickety old fences, rusty barrels lying about, and lots of frisky farm animals. Neighbors living nearby in their modern houses do not approve. The goose chases a jogger, the rooster crows day and night, and the goats hop over the fence to eat newly planted trees. Something has to be done about this neighbor with all the goats and farm animals! One cold October morning, two young children brave the honking goose and meet the Goat Lady, Noelie Lemire Houle. Miss Houle welcomes them into her life teaching them about farm animals, friendship and a different way of living. The children introduce the Goat Lady to their mother, an artist. By painting Miss Houle's picture and her daily activities, the neighbors and community gradually come to learn about and appreciate the Goat Lady. They discover how she donates young goats, "kids," to the Heifer Project, an International nonprofit organization. The Heifer Project has helped over 5 million families in 125 countries escape hunger, become more self-sufficient and become environmental aware. Two children help the Goat Lady teach her neighbors and community about the giving, courage and kindness. 2004, Tilbury House Publishers, Ages 8 to 11. 

—Lisa P. Hill

School Library Journal

-An elderly French Canadian named Noelie often drew criticism from the Dartmouth, MA, townsfolk because she kept a herd of white goats in her yard. Neighbors complained that the animals were noisy and unruly and that the house was unkempt. The author and her children befriended the old woman and found that she was gentle and kind. When Bregoli's daughter asked her to paint a picture of the Goat Lady, the artist painted a series of portraits and eventually exhibited them in a local art museum. The paintings helped others in the community to look past Noelie's mismatched clothes and odd ways and recognize her humble goodness. This gentle, straightforward narrative is told from the point of view of one of the children and is ideal for reading aloud. The book is illustrated with sharp color reproductions of Bregoli's original portraits done in a soft painterly style. A true story about intergenerational relationships and tolerance that's perfect for sharing.-Donna Cardon, Provo City Library, UT Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information.

Hugs From My Goat Lady filled Heart

White Love...

There is something about white, that always gets my attention...

weather it's a shelf stacked high with dishes...

bedroom walls...

or a familiar pair of jeans from high school days gone by...

there is a soothing...

calming...

cleanness about white that I so love.

Even the sight of a huge dog on a white bed works for me.  And I'm NOT a dog on the bed kinda girl.

White is simple and straight forward.

Kind of like my personality I guess.

Hugs From My Heart

Favorite Flower...

 

So love these...

Hugs From My Heart

Cozy Sleeping Arrangements

I've decided when we move... the very first room I finish is going to be our bedroom.

I am already planning out what will go where... what I need to buy that we don't have.

I guess after being married for almost 28 years...

the end of the day meeting place with Blue Eyes, where no one can disturb us, should be a priority.

Dontcha think?  ;)

 Hugs From My Heart

Happy Hump Day Everyone

Hugs From My Individual Heart

Rethinking... Grilled Cheese

A Grilled Cheese Truck?  Yup thats right.  In a recent New York's Time, Dinning & Wine section  is an article about Milk Truck Grilled Cheese.

From Milk Truck Grilled Cheese site...

"Late one night, when I was a kid, my Mom roused me from a deep sleep. She’d just made herself a midnight snack and insisted that I taste it. It was a sandwich—not a grilled cheese—but I remember that it tasted great. And it made me happy. So that’s probably when the idea for Milk Truck started. A grilled cheese sandwich is a simple thing. But Milk Truck Grilled Cheese aims to be more than putting together butter and bread and cheese. We tested tons of different combinations to arrive at the sandwiches we now serve. We obsessed about what kind of bread to use with what kind of cheese. We obsessed over how thick the bread slices should be for each sandwich. (That’s why you’ll see us hand cutting our bread with our handmade bread miter.) Every ingredient in each sandwich is there because we think it needs to be to make that sandwich delicious. Because we really believe that if we make and serve delicious things, it will make people happy. And just in case that doesn’t work, we decided to call the company Milk Truck." Can I just tell you, I LOVE how these people think!!!  LOVE, LOVE, LOVE!!! I don't know about you but grilled cheese has always been a staple at our house growing up, and one I have served my peeps forever.  Mine NEVER tasted as good as this one looks!!!   Here is their schedule, and places to acquire this delicious favorite, if you live closer to them then I... Do you think they'd drive their Milk Truck all the way here to Maine?  :) SATURDAYS - BEGINNING APRIL 7 Fort Greene Brooklyn Flea 10am-5pm 176 Lafayette Ave (between Clermont & Vanderbilt) Brooklyn, NY www.brooklynflea.com get directions Smorgasburg 10am-5pm 27 North 6th St. (btw. Kent Ave. + East River) Brooklyn, NY get directions Hugs from my Milk Truck Grilled Cheese envious heart.

I so believe the truth of this scripture.  Here are a few of my good things...


Beautiful flowers in the spring...

The unconditional love for your child... no matter what their age.

A good book that takes you away from all that is in your world... if only for an afternoon.

Yummy treats on a warm summer night.

Building a life with the man of your dreams, and still loving him just as much as the first time you told him.

Hot cup of coffee on a cold morning.

An unplanned trip on a warm summers day

Hugs from my heart

New Blog Find!!!

LOVE, LOVE, LOVE, finding new, amazing, blogs!!!  All Things Thrifty is a beauty!!!

This popular blogger has taken a butt ugly dresser...

Put a little elbow grease...

used a little creative thinking...

and created THIS for a baby nursery.

Please hop over to her blog,  All Things Thrifty, and see just how beautifully inexpensive it can be to decorate your home.

Hugs From My Heart