A Little Randomness on this glorious day

Good morning on this glorious Sunday morning. Since the weather changed to fall/winter mode, Florida is a great place to live. Yesterday when I talking to my son on the phone, he remarked how alive he felt and how much he looked forward to the cooler weather - his word for the 6 months of summer was "brutal." As you can see from the above photo, I snipped the rose bud this morning and brought it into the house - so beautiful and I can see it every time I walk through the living room.
Sunday is always a quiet but busy time for me - Dan always plays golf and I am alone in the house usually doing laundry, putting the roast in the crockpot, having a cup of tea, just living. I was raised going to church and Sunday school; and during my adult life, I have gone through periods of attending church and not. After returning to the US in 2001, I began attending a church and really looked forward every week to going - I felt so inspired and peaceful after the service, and the pastor was just so inspirational. Then he was moved to another church and the new pastor was much more hellfire and brimstone, and I left church feeling unsettled and even unhappy. I decided to quit going and to find God myself, and I think it was a good decision. I smell God in the fresh laundry drying on the clothesline in the sun, I feel God in the bread dough that I am kneading, I taste God in my tea and cinnamon toast. Anyway, I hope you are having a glorious day or night no matter when or where that you are reading this.

I have had a lovely birthday week, and the reason it was a week is because I admit to being a little paranoid about putting out information on the web so I have listed my birthdate as different dates and/or years on different sites - close but........ Anyway, it's been fun receiving greetings for several days AND yesterday I received in the mail a beautiful postcard of a painting by Dutch artist Marjan van Zeyl called The Pink House, and some fun Dutch scrapping supplies and paint brushes from Marit, a friend from SIS and Harlee-Quinnz. Thanks Marit, it was so fun to open the happy mail!!!!!

Yesterday Tara Anderson had a little blog celebration on her blog the Pink House, where she asked some fun questions and had a couple of challenges. The above photo is a 4 inch square piece of art - the background is actually a photo of my watercolor palette from yesterday afternoon - I loved how the colors had run together and mixed so I snapped a pic. The Bouchon card is from a fantastic French restaurant in downtown Asheville. Absolutely divine food!!!!!

Another challenge was to create a tag, and this is mine. I started with a piece of Prima packaging, added a Target tag, some fabric, ribbon, buttons, and metal frames. It's sort of a baby boy theme as that's what the packaging says - softly boy buttons - so I will save it for a shower present or use it on a layout with a baby pic of Brian. I began to get some ideas for Christmas tags but I have a couple of DT assignments to finish first and some painting to finish for my class on Wednesday so the tags will have to wait a few days.

For my birthday this past week, Dan and I went to my favorite Mexican restaurant and then afterwards he took me to TJ Maxx for a little shopping spree - I got some new towels for my bathroom, some fancy teas, and a few other little things. My house is done in pales - whites and creams - and I change the accent pieces for the seasons. Both bathrooms are done in white and cream - white towels in mine and cream in Dan's, but my new towels are the most delicious shade of pale aqua, and they have stylized embroidered flowers in espresso, caramel, and white near the bottom - so luscious and beautiful. I put out bottles in the bathroom that are in those shades and the room looks totally redone. Happy happy happy! It's so funny and synchronitic that http://www.shopevalicious.com/ just had a posting on Friday about aqua.

And before I close, I have a little favor to ask - please vote for Jenneke's layout on http://lotuspaperie.blogspot.com/ . She is a fabulous scrapper and is on the TAAFOMFT design team (speaking of, get us your layouts on your fav time of year - we have received such fabulous layouts but we want to see yours too!!!) A couple of months ago, she and I were finalists the same month and I was fortunate enough to win so this time it's her turn - she so totally deserves it - her layouts are always so alive, so colorful and filled with fun and unique elements.

Well, this is a pretty long post and I need to check on the laundry. Have a fabulous week filled with beauty and creativity!