It's Almost Been A Year Since My Last Visit Here!

 

Miss Bertha worries that she can't climb stairs to get to the bedroom!

Wow! Where has the year gone? So much has happened and my idea of the perfect home has changed drastically for me. Reality bites. Ouch! I am looking at buying a small yellow ranch house in Athens, Georgia, after drooling over turn of the century Victorian homes in Florida and Georgia. Why the change and what the heck has been going on?

First, last fall I had my house on the market for less than thirty days. I realized I could not move - not my home - but my body. My left hip caused me so much pain I literally stopped in place trying to walk from the jolt that went through my hip and down my leg. At that time I so wanted to move to Florida, to be closer to my mother, and to a little town forty miles from her that offered a wonderful pink Victorian home, three levels, mostly renovated, for a price that was hard to believe. Being in metro Atlanta, it is hard to find anything I can afford now. I could not afford to buy the house I am living in now if I weren't already here for so many years!

 

My Florida dream house currently pending sale to another at $149,000.  Seriously . . .

 

The holidays were a bit of a blur since I also popped something behind my right knee that kept me off my feet for a week, all my party plans on hold as I sat with six dogs, ordered food to be delivered, and sobbed with every romantic Christmas movie Hallmark had to offer.

 

I still got on the computer, Zillow my constant companion, next to the dogs, of course.

 

In January, my right hip started bothering me. Walking on a cane I felt like I was a hundred years old with both hips hurting. Still I postponed surgery. I hate the idea of surgery and I needed to figure out who could come take care of my six-pack of hounds while I was gone.

 

Finally I gave in. Surgery was scheduled for May, but I had almost two months to think about it. To distract myself, I pulled a book together, a picture book about one of my dogs, Miss April in Paris, who dreamed of visiting the city of lights. With the help of my talented sister/designer ( PD King Design) the picture book became a reality and posted on Amazon a few days before I had my surgery.

 

 

Available on Amazon. A portion of all sales goes to animal rescue.

 

While my dog dreamed of Paris, I still dreamed of a cottage style house, a farm house, a Victorian beauty. I wanted an acre or two, with maybe some chickens, or a goat. I still dream of that house, but have found a house that suits me well. And once again, I am off my rocker while still on my walker recovering from hip replacement surgery.

 

I found my perfect little ranch house in Athens, Georgia.

 

 

A far cry from the pink Victorian from last fall, but I do love this house. It is perfect for me and the dogs. Maybe I've watched too much HGTV while stuck at home recovering. OMG what they find behind walls when renovating older homes. The last thing I want - more house problems. Perhaps that Zillow ad on HGTV got to me . . . You are not just buying a house, you are buying a lifestyle. (The wording on TV may have been slightly different, but you get the idea.)

 

What do I want for my lifestyle? I don't want to be secluded on a farm away from civilization. How do I run get dog food at midnight? And I don't want stairs. Yes, I am still having trouble with stairs, but I will mend. I have dogs that could not go up stairs and I want them sleeping with me. Right now I yell "bed!!!!" and six dogs race down the hallway to the bedroom. They are waiting with wagging tails when I appear. How would some of them get up a flight of stairs . . . they wouldn't. So, nix the stairs, I'm down to all one level.

 

I have so many other dreams aside from my house fantasy, the cottage in my mind has changed in shape and appearance. I want to write, paint, make jewelry, do shows again, have fun with friends, perhaps attend classes at the University (when you get to be my age you can audit for free!) and find a way to be out of the house more, instead of constantly dreaming in my head!

 

I spend so much time figuring out where to put my stuff (and lots of that stuff is left over from my antique shop, still trying to thin it out) how to get rid of the last of my late husband's stuff (my three outbuildings are full of office desks from thirty years ago, paint cans, insect sprays, and rotting garden chairs from as many years back). I am weighted down by stuff, stuff that doesn't matter to me. I still love the stuff I love and will haul as much as possible to a new home. But I want to feel lighter in my house so I can enjoy everything on one floor. The cottage above still gives me as much square footage as I have here, minus the basement I can't even get into at the moment. It is perfect for me and the dogs. With four bedrooms and three baths, it will be perfect for friends and family to come visit, too.

 

Now it is up to the universe. I am ready to go. My house just went up for sale. It is a crazy thing to be doing this now. I am over one surgery, but still healing, and I may have to have surgery on my other hip. I am on a walker and can't bend down yet. But I believe that things happen when they should. I've done my part, now let's see if the time is right.

 

A fortune cookie at the beginning of the year had a fortune I liked. By the end of this year your dreams will come true. It took me a few months to figure out just exactly what my dream was. My dream versus my fantasy. There is a difference.

 

I want to be in my new home and walking with my new hips. It can happen. Anything can happen. Perhaps the universe has something entirely different for me. Time will tell. But for the moment the cottage in my mind is a little yellow ranch house that makes me smile thinking of a new start.

The Voices Are Speaking Again, Whispering To Me

There Is A Voice Inside Of You
That Whispers All Day Long,
"I Feel That This Is Right For Me,
I Know That This Is Wrong."
No Teacher, Preacher, Parent, Friend
Or Wise Man Can Decide
What's Right For You- Just Listen To
The Voice That Speaks Inside.

 

Shel Silverstein

 

 

 

 

The voices are speaking to me again. Whispering. The cottage in my mind, that siren that won't let go, has beckoned me, teased me, just as I thought I'd settled down. I am up on Realtor.com looking at houses late at night, wondering if it is time for a change.

 

If it were only so simple to decide "I feel that this is right for me, I know that this is wrong".

 

Late at night it feels so right, yet in the morning sun, as my day begins, and the dogs and I walk into my back yard, the voice is hushed as I breathe in the sweet morning air and quietly think to myself, stay, perhaps anything else would be wrong.

 

I know what triggered this latest round of voices. The loudest voice was my own crying out, Nooooo! The French drain that went in last year, and has kept water from seeping into my basement, failed a week ago. All the Georgia rain, pounding hard on my roof, on the ground, relentless in the mid afternoons, brought two things, one oh so right, the other, oh so wrong.

 

My roses burst forth in a beautiful display of pink. A magical moment when the new buds opened up and my world was rosy.

My basement started to leak again. I watched as the work was done a year ago and my handyman did a splendid job. I chose him over a large company that would have done the same repair, the only difference, jackhammering up my cement floor to put in a drain and a fan, for ten thousand dollars. My handyman's work mirrored the work in their brochure. I did not want a drain. I wanted the water to stop. 

I may be cursed with this problem forever, water trickling into my basement. I went to Home Depot and purchased a small shop vac. It will do the job a drain would, and for much less. It was thirty dollars. My buck stops here.

That small puddle on my grey cement floor started a conversation in my mind again. Perhaps it is time to go. 

The voices took me to Florida this time. To be close to my family, to be in a small town close to the water, to redefine who I am before more time passes.

My birthday is just around the corner. This year for all its promise, gave me moments of self-doubt. Surgery in February kept me too quiet for too long.  I will be sixty-six in a blink of an eye. I worry I am not where I am supposed to be. I wonder if I'm too old to make a huge move. I question if I really want to.

The never-ending question that haunts me the most, do I need to leave this house I lived for thirty plus years, twenty-five of them with my husband, to take the final step to find myself. I am happy here, safe, in a lovely town with great friends, but I can't leave those questions alone.

Houses. My sirens, my ghosts, my passion. I started this blog to come to terms with my dream of an old house. I thought I'd settled in to a life here. Now I wonder . . .

My first night up on Realtor.com again had me downsizing to a smaller house with all the square footage on one floor, with less age problems. As true to my nature and the house demons that haunt me, the cottage in my mind grew to enormous proportions, to a huge gingerbread Victorian house with a second story.

A new business, a small art gallery, a place for writers to meet, rooms for family and friends to come visit, the houses below could accommodate all.  The repairs could be worse than what I dread  here now! But a dream is a lovely place to start to figure things out.  Maybe for me it is the questions, not the answers, that are important. I believe that in questioning our lives we find what is important to live life to the fullest, to answer what is right  for me and what is wrong.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The one constant in any cottage dream - a yard large enough for six dogs to play and be safe. I do have my priorities straight there! 

 

Garden In July

 

 

Some photos of my garden in July. The first of the month the blooms were bright with roses and daisies. Some flowers are fading now and others filling in. It always amazes me to watch how nature changes. The Crepe Myrtle and Tiger Lilies are adding hot pink and orange in huge spurts of color!

 

 

 

 

Jasmine blossoms round the arbour,
Elder spreads along the air,
Hollyhocks stand proudly tallest
In the fragrant thoroughfare.
Pansies, like a 'broidered carpet,
Through the garden ways are set,
And the sweet-peas catch the sunlight
In a tangled flowery net.
Sunflowers, with a kingly bearing,
Hold their golden heads on high,
Pinks breathe out a friendly welcome
Every time you pass them by.
Gather seeds while seeds do ripen
In the bounteous July sun,
Garner well the treasure-packets
In your store-house one by one.
And before the month is over,
Pluck sweet lavender and dry
All its tiny flowers for sweetness,
In the winter by and by.

Caroline Maitland (1858 – 1920) was an English poet and writer. She married in 1883 Ernest Radford, and wrote as Dollie Radford.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A Single Hollyhock



Hollyhocks - Frederick Carl Frieseke

"As for marigolds, poppies, hollyhocks, and valorous sunflowers, we shall never have a garden without them, both for their own sake, and for the sake of old-fashioned folks, who used to love them."

                                                                                                                                                                    Henry Ward Beecher 


I love this painting by Frederick Carl Frieseke and have a knock-off of it on canvas rolled away to be framed if I ever have enough wall space.  Oh to have a garden like the one he painted!

Hollyhocks are a favorite of mine.  At one time, a life-time ago, Hollyhocks bloomed over six feet tall in the back bed. Sadly they disappeared over time. Happily my huge rose bush with its tiny pink flowers took over the space years later.

Last summer when my  picket fence went up, I had help picking out flowers to plant from a charming gentlemen who worked part-time as a garden consultant at my local hardware store. He planted a single Hollyhock on the outside of the fence, where it bordered the sidewalk. I thought that was a most unusual place to plant a Hollyhock, remembering the years past and the size of the plants in my back yard. I didn't question it. He was the master, I was dolling out a bit of change for his help.

It didn't grow much last year. I couldn't image how this runt of a plant would grow six feet tall. This year it was still short. I waited and wondered how I would ever see it bloom.

Then to my amazement, there were buds, and a week later, a blossom. It finally dawned on me this was some sort of a dwarf hollyhock! No wonder he planted it by the fence!

At this point I need to remind myself to ask more questions of others and to reiterate I am lucky my flowers grow at all in my yard with my lack of gardening knowledge.

But still . . . I have a Hollyhock by my picket fence. One stunning black blossom nods at me as I walk down to admire the flowers that continue to surprise me with their beauty and willpower to thrive!

Isn't that what life is all about . .  the willpower to survive, to grow, and to bloom.  Every day there is something that has left my garden and something new that is lovely to replace it.

I am learning what seasoned gardeners have known. There are lessons to be found digging in the dirt . .  . I am coming at it late in life, but what a beautiful time to discover this.

 

 

Coming Soon - My Little Etsy Shop

Well, I am having withdrawal. No antique booth to tend to. I decided two months ago I needed to close my antique booths to concentrate on my writing. It was the right move. My shop days are behind me. But I still have so much to sell - and I am working on some jewelry. So, I am updating my old Etsy shop in hopes of listing some treasures for sale. So far I do what I do best - designed my logo. I am so good at setting things up - but slow in getting them in motion. So very me. I adore the process of finding graphics and pulling a look together. The actual act of listing, selling (or waiting to see if anything sells) makes me crazy. And if I love something - do I really want to sell it? A problem my entire life! A collector turned antique dealer is a questionable reality.

I've always loved gardens and flowers so that is where I will follow my heart. Making jewelry can be so relaxing between bouts of writing! My little shop will also sell vintage garden items.

Four years ago my jewelry line, Time In A Garden, was featured in The Atlanta Botanical Gardens Gift Shop. Vintage bug pins, chains, beads, and old watch parts made up necklaces and pins.  I found a few remaining pieces and plan to put them up later this week on Etsy. A sneak peek below. I hope to make some new designs with more bling - garden bling! Stay tuned.

Note: When you see the photos below remember I love whimsy in everything!

 

                                                   

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

My David Austin Rose Is Blooming!

 

 

 

 

Won't you come into the garden? I would like my roses to see you. 

Richard Brinsley Sheridan

 

 

Nothing says cottage garden more than roses to me. I want old fashion English roses that look like the roses in magazines, climbing over arbors, twining through picket fences.

 

My wish came true today. In a small way. But big enough to fill my heart with the beauty I covet. And it is growing in my back yard.

 

Finally.

 

My very own David Austin rose is in full regalia with blossoms and buds ready to burst open at any moment.

 

Now, if I were a true gardener, I could tell you the name of this rose. But I don't have a clue. It was purchased twenty years ago from a catalog. The photo was one of many that I had trouble deciding on. I knew pink was a must.

 

It took years to bloom. The rose is planted next to the back of the house. My late husband built a huge trellis for me. The vines took hold of the wood railings and started to climb high. But the rose never had a single flower.

 

Did you fertilize it? you might ask. My answer is no. I did nothing to help this English lady blossom.

 

I just waited.

 

And wondered.

 

Back when my husband was alive he was not happy with the bush. It reached out far into the yard with huge thick thorns that stuck him as he rode by on the lawnmower. There may not have been flowers, but the branches had a life of their own. He pruned it back a few times and tucked the  branches back on the trellis, hoping to contain it. Sometimes cutting it back further than he should at times when pruning was not recommended.

 

Still the rose bush held its own coming back each year. But no blooms.

 

The year after my husband died, I had to put a French drain in next to the foundation of the house. There was water in my basement. The trellis was moved. The rose stayed in place.

 

"Cut that rose bush when you dig the ditch and it is off with your heads!" I told my handyman and his crew as I wagged a finger in their faces.

 

The rose survived the French drain.

 

It bloomed the following year. And has had a rose or two on it each year since.

 

This year it is taking me by surprise.

 

Huge blooms. Many buds.

 

My rose bush. Neglected. Managed to grow despite adversity and is now a thing of beauty.

 

I know there is a life lesson there.

 

For now I'm just going to watch with awe.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Won't you come into the garden? I would like my roses to see you.

Richard Brinsley Sheridan

Read more at http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/keywords/roses.html#8L4DMRokLgFK2TEA.99

Won't you come into the garden? I would like my roses to see you.

Richard Brinsley Sheridan

Read more at http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/keywords/roses.html#8L4DMRokLgFK2TEA.99

How Does My Garden Grow?

Obviously Mistress Mary had someone helping her in the garden, looking that lovely and clean, her linen clothes impeccable  . . . or all she did was water her plants. I have had two Monday mornings out in my yard, weeding, planting, hauling debris in the proper paper sacks to the curb for the trash to pick up, all the while . . . looking like something that had rolled in the mud.

I garden like I paint.

Half of what I do lands on me.

Perhaps that is part of the fun. Maybe Mistress Mary would not look so solemn if she allowed Mother Nature to make her a little dirty.

Then she would be grinning like I do when I finish my rounds in the yard.

This year my resolve is to get my gardens in shape. It started last spring with a picket fence out front. A stately, yet cottage style, picket fence in natural wood and a  lovely garden cement maiden that would make any yard proud. I had help planting a few Knock Out roses, a few large Hydrangea plants that cost more than a meal at a fine restaurant, but a feast for the eyes and soul, more than any entrée I've devoured. (Although I do enjoy the instant gratification of a wonderful meal in a lovely setting with a glass of wine shared with friends.) The garden bed by my picket fence started to take shape.

Imagine how excited I was to see my roses start to bloom a week ago, their pretty faces peeking through the pickets of my fence. I clapped my hands with joy and did a happy dance. I decided I needed more roses, more flowers, more sweet charm.

I found roses one rainy afternoon that spoke to me as I went through the garden section of Home Depot, looking for plants as table decorations for an writer's event I had volunteered to do the floral table arrangements for the following week. I decided not to buy cut flowers at their expense, but to pay for the flowers myself, buy something I could take home after the event, and plant in my yard.

The flowers would be a lovely reminder of the friendships from that evening, but it would also get me off my lazy butt to plant in my yard. You just can't leave plants in the trunk of your car for any length of time! So the following Monday found me digging in the dirt.

I had the time of my life. The soil was easy to work, it had not gotten parched from the heat, but was delightfully damp from all the rain we had. Did someone say use gloves? I never do. I love to feel the dirt between my fingers, makes me more one with nature. Also makes for a heck of a lot of scrubbing to get nails clean again. I dig deep and claw at the ground to pull old roots, ivy, and anything in my way.

Life is changing for me again this year. I am growing, reaching in new directions, just like my roses. I've weeded out what needed to go in my life so I can branch out to do more of the things I want. I am a hanger-on, it is time to let go. Antiques have always been a love of mine, and they still are. But I want to buy for myself when I get a whim, not buy for resale. So I've closed my antique booths and the words antique dealer are off my resume, replaced with  . . sometimes antique dealer. (I let go slowly!)  My selling will be private when the mood strikes. Not having a booth to tend to will give me time to work in my garden, write my books, relax with the dogs.

Letting go of things can be difficult, but if you choose wisely, what goes, what stays, the feeling is euphoric. Or maybe it is just the feel of the soil, the sweat from working hard, breathing in fresh air, exercise, all the things that make you feel physically great, and one with the universe.

My universe sends me signs. I swear the roses spoke to me as I packed the soil around them.  Plant more is what I heard. You'll find me next at a favorite shop that sells fragrant herbs. What is a garden without Rosemary and Lavender?  

A few photos of my roses. Small, lovely, but my little garden that I will tend to with joy! It is a start . . . and with everything in life, the first step is starting. Stay tuned to see how we grow.